Shades of Blue Cerulean
by bluedawn01
Summary: Trapped in the parallel universe, Rose finally thinks she's found the Doctor, but it isn't exactly the one she expects. She falls in love with him anyway. The first story in the "Past Present and Future" series.
1. Eight I

A distinct, keening metal-on-metal grating noise pitched through the air across the Thames, reaching the ears of a young blonde woman emerging from the Tube. She raised her head and swung it around wildly. It couldn't be. It had been three years but that sound still burned in her memory, the impossible sound of hope and happiness.

Almost reluctantly, she turned toward it, looking across the bridge and down toward the London Eye. She had been fooled before. Three years of jumping and running to the side of exceptionally loud and generally disfunctioning vacuum cleaners. She shifted from one foot to the other, letting people pour out the doors around her, trying to decide what to do.

Oh well. She'd risk a run-in with a faulty appliance for the small possibility it wasn't fake this time. She'd risk it every time.

The sound continued and she took off running, feeling a pang of sadness and remembering the last time she dashed across this bridge, or at least a similar zeppelin-less bridge, hand-in-hand with the manic alien owner of the blue box she desperately hoped she was headed toward.

She bounded down the steps, past the Eye and into the alleyways behind, pleased to note that she was breathing easily despite the running. _Yup, still got it,_ she smiled to herself.

It had to be here. She was sure this time. But then, she had been sure before. She picked up her pace as the sound started to fade away and swung her head to the side again, desperately searching down a side alley for a glimpse of blue...and crashed headlong into something very solid.

"Oof!" she cried, and two figures deposited themselves rather inelegantly on the pavement. She shook her head and raised it to glance at the source of her sudden tumble. It was a man. A man who looked as though he had stepped dramatically out of a Victorian romance novel. Chestnut curls framed his angular face and he was wearing tight gray breeches, a fancy patterned vest, a long black velvet overcoat and had some sort of blousy tie around his neck.

She cocked her head at him. Well, that was odd. She was near the Globe, though. Maybe he was an actor on his way to work. Or perhaps January 25th was "Dress Up Like a Jane Austen Character" day in Pete's world. That was possible.

She figured anything was possible in a world that somehow survived without potatoes. Honestly, a world with no chips. Mickey had almost been afraid to tell her, she thought, laughing to herself. She didn't know which she missed more...the Doctor or chips. Well...that wasn't true. She did know. But it was easier to think of it in those terms sometimes. It helped her get by when she felt overwhelmed by her sadness, by his absence.

The man in front of her elegantly rose to his feet and extended a gentlemanly hand in her direction. "I am quite sorry about that, Miss. I'm afraid I didn't see you there. Are you hurt?" Boy, he was good. He even spoke like a character out of one of her books, a gentle Regency accent falling from his lips and beautiful blue-gray eyes peering at her with utmost concern.

"No, I'm all righ'," she replied from her place on the pavement, cringing at her harsh accent compared to his own. "It was my fault. Sorry 'bout that. Shoulda been watching where I was goin'."

She accepted the hand and he pulled her to her feet, maintaining the grasp on her hand a little bit longer than she thought was necessary. He was looking at her strangely now, head inclined gently to the side, interest and curiosity replacing the concern and she felt uncomfortable under his steadfast gaze. She withdrew her hand quickly. Last thing she needed was to be hit on by a nutter in strange clothes when she was busy looking for the TARDIS. Even if he was a good-looking nutter.

"Well, uh, thanks for the hand," she said and backed away from him, fidgeting with the bottom of her jacket and looking for a quick and convenient way out of this conversation.

"Where were you going in such a hurry?" he asked, genuinely interested. This girl was something odd. He'd felt something strange when he touched her hand. There was a very strong, if latent, telepathic field around her, remarkably odd for a human.

His Time sense was reacting very strongly, drawing him to her. What's more, she felt distantly familiar to him and he wanted to touch her hand again and see if the feeling returned. Always up for a mystery, him.

"Just lookin' for somethin'," she replied, cautiously, eyes narrowing at him as he took a step toward her almost blocking her in the alley. Why did he want to know? And why was he coming closer?

He took in her reaction with mild surprise and interest. Eyes narrowed, pulse increasing and a slight smell of adrenaline. That puzzled him. Oh, right. Silly suspicious humans. Always thinking they were under attack. He stepped away, clasped his hands behind his back in what he hoped was a non-threatening pose and gave her his best disarming smile. This body was good at disarming smiles.

She raised her chin and regarded him again, a little less suspiciously but still cautious. Good, it worked then. But she also edged around him sideways so she had a clear shot away and he could feel her tensed and ready to run. Interesting again. This girl had obviously been in difficult situations before. He wondered if she was a soldier of some sort. She didn't really look it. Or a thief. Oh! That would be exciting. His eyes swept up and down her body, assessing her clothing and demeanor. At his scrutiny, her previous reactions returned.

Eyes still narrowed, she coughed. "Enjoyin' the view?"

"What?" he asked, absently. Oh. He sighed audibly. Humans, honestly. Time to be disarming again.

"Just trying to figure out why such a lovely young woman was pelting down the street at top speed, ramming into well-meaning strangers," he replied. Ooo...that may have been more rude than disarming. He was usually so good at not being rude in this body.

She softened a bit at his comment. Wait...why had rude worked and disarming hadn't? Oh well. Maybe she was used to rude. He thought he could place her accent from the Southern part of London, lower middle class, probably.

"I did say I was sorry about tha'," she answered. "Are you all righ'?" she asked suddenly, as an afterthought.

"Me? I'm always all right," he replied, the flip answer coming out easily accompanied by another smile. To his surprise, her eyes widened, her breathing quickened and she took a step toward him, staring him directly in the eyes as though she were searching for something. He felt an odd surge of telepathy around him and he mentally scrambled behind his shields but her mind didn't connect with his as it should have. She obviously wasn't in control of it. Not a very good telepath, then.

At a loss in this particular social situation, he simply stared back. Her eyes were a beautiful hazel and there were flecks of gold in them. He started to take another step closer to her, entranced by the gold and feeling her pull on him, but she broke the contact abruptly. Apparently she hadn't found what she was looking for because he watched a flash of disappointment and something else...relief maybe? move across her highly expressive face.

"Anyway. Just, uh, goin' then. Have fun at your party or wherever you're headed, mate," she said, gesturing dismissively at his clothing. He was about to protest but she turned quickly from him to walk in the opposite direction.

Odd again. His perception filter should have prevented her from thinking there was anything strange about his clothing. None of the other humans he'd passed on the street had given him a second glance.

He watched her form disappear around the corner and debated what to do. The TARDIS had kicked him out because she needed to fix herself after the extraordinarily rough landing they'd had getting to this place and she didn't appreciate his fiddling around the console distracting her. He meant to go find some dinner (chips sounded lovely) but this girl was quite the mystery.

She'd give him something to investigate since he was going to be stuck here for a few days. He could get chips later. Or maybe he could convince her to get chips with him! That would certainly be easier than stalking her. Less creepy too, probably. Decision made, he hurried off in the direction she had gone. Her mental signature was so strange that it wouldn't be too hard to track her down.

He realized vaguely that he was headed back in the direction of the TARDIS. Maybe he would pop his head in and see if she'd changed her mind about letting him help. He altered his direction slightly and turned down the alley where he'd parked her (well - crashed was probably a better description but who was going to quibble with him over that?) just in time to see a flash of blonde hair disappear inside the door.

Wait...what?

His hearts sped up. Suddenly the idea of the girl being a thief didn't sound so appealing. Not that the TARDIS would let herself be stolen (although...come to think of it, that's rather how he ended up with the ship). He amended the thought. The TARDIS wouldn't allow herself to be stolen from him.

Still an unwanted pesky human inside could do a lot of damage. How had she gotten in? Surely he had locked the door. He tried the handle when he arrived there a few seconds later. Yep, locked. He pulled out his key and slipped inside as quietly as possible, intending to surprise his unwanted house guest.

He found her standing with her back to the door in the center of the main room and he tensed when he saw that her hands were on the console. His tension quickly turned into confusion and interest, however, when he saw what she was doing.

She was running her hands up and down the console, no...she was _caressing_ it. There was no other way to describe her actions. She was murmuring softly and, to his great surprise, he felt the ship answering her even if he couldn't hear what was being said directly. Maybe she knew how to use her telepathy after all. After a few silent moments of exchange, the girl lifted her head and hands and straightened her back.

Rose glanced around, taking in the unexpected view. The TARDIS looked so different, all Gothic with elegant wood paneling and bookshelves instead of green and organic. She was reeling from the shock of actually finding the TARDIS, different as it looked on the inside. It still felt like the TARDIS, sounded like the TARIDS, responded like the TARDIS. But where was the Doctor? He couldn't be far away.

"Doctor?" she called uncertainly back into the depths of the ship where she thought the door out of the console room should be.

"Yes?" he answered automatically, giving away his position by the main door.

She jumped in surprise and whirled to face him. Her eyes widened as she took in the Mr. Darcy nutter from the street leaning casually on the TARDIS doors.

He watched very carefully as emotions fled once again across her face. He identified shock, relief, disappointment and concern before he unceremoniously found himself with an armful of weeping pink and yellow human.

Again unsure how to handle this turn of events, he merely stood stiff in her arms and let her hold him tightly. Feeling he was supposed to do something, he patted her back rather awkwardly.

"Doctor, wha' happened? Why'd you regenerate? More importantly, why'd you choose tha' outfit? Never mind, not more importantly. It doesn't matter. I don't care. I'll get used to it. You're here,s'all tha' matters. I missed you so much!" she sobbed into his velvet jacket. He was baffled by her rambling. How did she know his name? And about regeneration? And what was wrong with his clothes?

He gently sidestepped out of her embrace. "You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You clearly know me but I don't seem to know you," he said, kindly. His words seemed to wound her and she stumbled back a bit, staring at him with wide, damp eyes.

Rose gaped at him, trying to keep new tears from surfacing. It had occurred to her that he hadn't recognized her on the street and his words had just confirmed her worst nightmare. He didn't know her! Maybe that happened with regeneration sometimes. They never had really talked about it. Maybe he sometimes forgot companions.

Or maybe he had just forgotten her. Maybe it had been hundreds of years for him and he'd forgotten her. Or maybe it had only been a few years and he still had forgotten. But he had promised...No. She had to push those thoughts away. He was here, and that's what mattered. She would figure this out. And she wasn't about to let him go.

She stepped toward him tentatively and gently laid her hands to the sides of his face, surprising him again. "Did you hit your head or somethin'? Regeneration sickness again? Why don't you remember me, Doctor?"

He almost jumped at the spark in his mind as her fingers ghosted across his temples. He got a flash of emotions and memories too jumbled for him to understand. She really had no control over her telepathy. He was beginning to suspect she didn't even know about it. But with the TARDIS a moment ago...he didn't understand her.

He carefully disentangled her hands from his head and for a moment they just stared at each other.

"I have not recently hit my head, barring the slight jolt awarded to me a few moments ago by a girl on the street." He quirked the corner of his mouth at her and was rewarded with a small smile in return. "I'm not sure what you mean by regeneration sickness...although I find myself rather interested in that. But I still don't know who you are."

The girl took a deep breath and stared at his shoes. "Well, I know you. We travelled together an' we were...anyway, we travelled together," she trailed off, unable or unwilling to tell him more. He felt like there was more she was going to add but she resolutely pressed her lips shut.

"For how long?" he pressed. Maybe she had come along with him for a trip in one of his past lives although he didn't think that was likely. She knew too much for one trip and he would have remembered anyway.

"'Bout 2 years, I think. 's hard to tell in the TARDIS though, innit? Could have been more," she answered. She seemed to have recovered from her shock and her breathing was steadying. He had to admire her resolve. Obviously this was trying for her and yet she was taking it in stride. Two years was a long time to keep a companion, for him at least. His usually didn't last very long.

"Well, I'm fairly certain that I would remember if we had travelled together that long. So that only leaves a few options," he answered, slowly.

"Which are?"

"Either you are mistaken and we didn't travel together at all and your memories are invented or planted," he answered, rushing on to get past her deeply affronted expression, "or, we simply haven't met...yet," he finished, emphasizing the "yet". The TARDIS hummed a gentle affirmative at him. So that was it. Well that explained the distantly familiar feeling he felt from her. She was familiar...to a future version of him.

She considered his words, chewing on her bottom lip and staring at the ceiling. "Which body are you on now?" she asked.

He was surprised at her question. Time Lords were notoriously tight-lipped about their particular form of semi-immortality and it seemed strange that a 21st century human would be so candid about it. Oh, well. He supposed he should stop being surprised at her. She obviously knew a lot about his kind. Or about him at least.

He frowned slightly. "This is my eighth body," he answered.

She nodded and blew out a hot breath he could feel from where he was standing. He would never get used to how incredibly warm humans were. He could almost feel her body heat from where he was standing, a meter and a half from her. It was distracting.

"Well, I know two versions of you but you never told me what numbers you were on so that doesn't help much. Seems logical, though," she said, again surprising him with her bluntness and her apparent acceptance of the strange situation. And she had stayed with him through a regeneration? Usually that was too much for his companions. No wonder he had chosen her.

She took in his surprise and simply answered with a shrug. "You get used to weird, timey-wimey stuff travelling with you," she said.

Before he could remark on her use of the words "timey-wimey" her expression turned from thoughtful to horrified "Wait...does that mean we're makin' a paradox here, me meeting you before you've met me? Are the Reapers comin'?" She glanced around her nervously and he heard her breath speed up again.

Rose started to panic. Even if she wasn't all that fond of this world, she didn't want any innocent people dying because of her meddling in Time again. She should have known something like this would happen.

"No, no," he said, quickly trying to dispel her concern. "If we're careful with the information exchange, it should be fine. Plus, I'll have to forget this anyway, so I can set up a memory loop and forget until it's safe to remember."

That seemed to calm her and he could again see her thinking deeply, could practically hear the thoughts churning through her mind. "Why is that? Last time," she caught herself at the sight of his widened eyes and quickly amended the statement, "I mean, shouldn't runnin' into someone from your personal future or past be bad?"

He beamed at her. She was clever. "For a normal person, yes. But it tends to happen to Time Lords a lot. Well, meddlesome ones like me, anyway. So, mostly just me," he said, amused with himself. "I've run into myself many times before. Even had to work with myself more than once. What?" he asked at her raised eyebrow.

"Jus' tryin' to imagine two of you in the same place," she said with a snicker. Particularly she was imagining her gruff, methodical first Doctor trying to work alongside the hyper-active, pretty version that replaced him. She imagined a lot of eye rolling and name calling.

"What's wrong with that? Too much brilliance in one place?" he said, blue eyes twinkling. Ah, there was his instinctual arrogance. Rose smiled. Some things apparently didn't change with regeneration.

"More like too much ego in one place," she responded, teasingly. He put on a face of mock affront. "Can't imagine it turning out well...at least with the versions I know," Rose continued.

"Oh, it usually doesn't. Lots of shouting and insulting. In fact, once the second and third versions of me got into such a fight, the first version had to come along and sort it out," he said, laughing at the memory.

She laughed with him, marvelling at the differences she saw in him. This Doctor seemed so young and carefree. Oh, he was still ancient and alien but there was an innocence playing across his handsome face that she had never seen before.

"Well," he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "We obviously have lots to talk about and I find myself remarkably hungry. Would you care to join me for dinner Miss, erm...well I suppose I haven't formally learned your name. Yet," he added cheekily.

"Rose. Rose Tyler"

"All right then, Rose Tyler," he said, letting the name roll over his tongue expressively. It felt so natural. "Shall we?" He extended a gentlemanly arm to her which she quickly accepted.

Rose gazed at him in wonder from her position attached to his arm as they walked out of the TARDIS. How had he managed to say her name like that? She hadn't expected it. Her Doctors, both of them, had always said her name in a way that made her feel as though "Rose Tyler" were the two most important words ever spoken but this him didn't even know her.

"So, anything in particular that you would like to eat?" he asked.

"Nope. I'm an easy date," she responded and then cursed herself. Date? Why had she said that? To send him running from her?

If he had an adverse reaction to her word choice, he hid it well. "To be honest, I have an immense craving for chips. And we are in London!" _Well, some version of London, anyway_ he thought, eyeing the zeppelins overhead. He thought maybe he had hopped dimensions by accident.

She snorted beside him and he looked at her, both amused and surprised at the unladylike noise. "'fraid you're out of luck there, mate. No chips in this universe. No potatoes, at all," she responded in a sad voice.

"If chips and potatoes don't exist in this universe, how do you know what they are?" he asked, intrigued.

She rolled her eyes at him and turned to give him a look that made him feel as though he had dribbled on his shirt. "You must get smarter as you age," she told him.

"I beg your pardon?" he said, mock affront covering up a small tinge of real offense. She certainly was cheeky, this creature he had found. And that had been a legitimate question!

She let go of his arm and dissolved into a fit of laughter. One look at his offended face and she laughed again, letting her mirth ring out through the deserted streets. This version of him didn't handle female laughter any better than the next two she knew.

"What?" he asked, growing irritated at her continued laughter. Obviously it was at his expense and he didn't understand the joke.

"It's jus'," she sputtered, "You sound so posh! 'I beg your pardon' an' all. Neither one of my Doctors ever would have said tha'!"

Before he could dwell too long on her use of the possessive pronoun, she continued. "I know about chips because I'm not from this universe."

"Oh!" he cried, affront forgotten. "That explains a few things!"

"What sor' of things?" she frowned at him, crinkling her brow adorably.

"There's just some odd things about you, that's all," he said dismissively, waving his hand and offering his arm again.

She didn't accept. "What sor' of things?" she repeated.

He blew out a breath. Explaining Time sense to humans was always so complicated. "You know how you lot have five senses? Well, I've got more. 27 to be exact. And most of them have to do with seeing Time which means..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know all about that. Superior Time Lord biology an' all," she cut him off in an irritated voice. He was a bit deflated by her dismissal. He'd been gearing up for a big speech. Why did he feel he needed this girl's approval?

"Well," he huffed a bit, "It would seem as though this universe's timelines are compensating around you, making tiny little exceptions because you're here. It's not very safe. You don't belong here," he said, frowning.

"Tell me about it," she responded, almost bitterly.

Once the words were out of his mouth, he could see it much more clearly. He watched as timelines bent and twisted to avoid her. Her own timelines were completely shrouded to him and he didn't know what to make of that either. She didn't belong here but without seeing her timelines he couldn't tell where she belonged. And Time was going to start unravelling around her if she didn't get back to wherever that was.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

"Got trapped by accident. Been tryin' to get back but no luck yet. In fact, you told me yourself that it was impossible." Rose looked away from him with pain-filled eyes, remembering their final good-bye.

"Really? Why would I say that? We do it all the time," he answered, confused.

"Who's 'we'?" Rose asked, furrowing her brow again.

"Time Lords, of course," he responded, giving her a Look. Rose blanched but luckily for her the Doctor had turned away to bluster on, missing her distressed face. "It's a bit inconvenient but certainly not impossible. I didn't exactly mean to get here this time, not sure how it happened. As it is, I'm going to have to call Romana when the TARDIS is functional again and have her help me back through."

He turned back to her and watched for a flicker of recognition. Receiving none, he was puzzled again. This girl had travelled with him for two years and he'd never once mentioned Romana? His friend and the PRESIDENT of the Time Lords? She was staring at him again and thinking, with something that looked like pity on her face.

Rose understood now. This was him before the Time War. She wondered how long before the war it was. No wonder he seemed so light and carefree. Gallifrey was still there and flourishing, he still had his family and his world. It pained her to imagine the broken soldier he would become, the destroyer of worlds, the Lonely God and to know he would struggle to smile again for so long.

He watched her studying him, deep thoughts turning in her human brain and knew instinctively she was seeing a different face. He wondered what he would become to garner a look like that from her. It frightened him a little.

"So, dinner?" he asked, wanting to break the silence and escape from her piercing gaze.

"Righ'. Well there's a place..," she was suddenly cut off by the ringing of her mobile phone. "Sorry, 'scuse me," she said to him and flipped open the mobile. He heard a woman's voice on the other end, chattering a mile a minute.

"Oh, Mum! Um, yeah. O'course I'm comin' to dinner tonight." He raised his eyebrows and she looked at him apologetically. Slightly irritated sounding words issued from the phone. "No, I didn't forget! Jus' got to go get my car from work and then I'm out the door." More sounds from the other end of the phone. "No, I haven't been at work this whole time. Went downtown to do some shoppin' and got a bit...distracted. I'm not lyin'! And I'm not a workaholic. Yes, Mum. Ok. Hang on a mo'," she put one hand over the receiver and turned to him.

"Sorry. I've got to go to dinner with my family tonight," she apologized. He simply nodded and she fidgeted nervously. "Erm...I don't suppose you would, uh, want to come?" she asked politely, fully expecting him to decline as her first Doctor would have. He surely had much more important things to do and Mickey and her Mum would make things very complicated.

To her surprise and dismay, his face lit up. "Oh! I'd be delighted! Full on human family meal. Sounds fascinating!" She gaped at him for a moment and he wondered if that was perhaps not the answer he had been supposed to give. She recovered quickly and turned from him, speaking into the phone once more.

"Is it all righ' if I bring a friend?" He watched as whatever her mother said on the other end of the phone made Rose blush a bright scarlet. "NO, Mum. Ok, good. Thanks. See you in a bit." She snapped the phone shut and turned to him.

"My parents live on an estate just out of town," she said. "We can take the Tube over to my work and then I'll get my car from the garage, if that's all righ' with you."

"Lead on! Your universe and all," he said, smiling broadly at her and allowing her to take his arm again as they began to walk. To his surprise, instead of being cloying, it was comforting having her warmth at his side.

"No, it's not," she responded stiffly and stopped moving.

"Oh, right. Sorry," he quickly tried to cover his mistake and as he felt her begin to withdraw her arm, he covered the hand grasping his arm with the other hand to prevent her from letting go. She seemed as surprised at his action as he was and they simply began walking again.

She seemed very touchy about the whole "wrong universe" thing. Come to think of it, she had said she'd been trapped here. Against her will, it sounded like. And he had, apparently, said it was impossible to return.

Maybe he had stuck her here on purpose? Maybe she was dangerous. But surely then she wouldn't be so friendly with him, now. And hadn't he known it would rip this universe's timelines apart to have her here? So many questions and so few answers.

Maybe dinner with her family would open up some answers. Hang on. If this wasn't her universe, how did she have a family here? He asked her as much when they had chosen a secluded seat away from the other passengers on the Tube.

"It's a bit complicated. Pete, my dad (sor' of) is from this universe. My dad back home died when I was a baby. There was a giant mess here with Cybermen," she paused as he stiffened and hissed at the name. "Don't worry. You an' me, we sorted it out. With a lot of help." He relaxed a bit.

"Anyway, the version of my mum here died then. An' when we left, one of my friends stayed an' replaced the version of himself here who died. Then there was another big mess back in my universe with Cybermen and Daleks," she paused again, knowing that the name would elicit the same reaction. It did, except this time she watched as his jaw clenched and the hand over hers on his arm tightened painfully.

"We fixed it, but I..." she faltered a bit and felt hot tears coming to her eyes as she pictured the Doctor's face as she let go of the lever...it was so hard to re-live. This Doctor's expression softened and he turned in his seat awkwardly to face her. He could feel her grief and sadness leaking through her unshielded telepathy. "I got separated from you and to save me from the Void, Pete grabbed me and I got trapped here. My mum came along as well."

His heart swelled for this brave girl, facing Daleks and Cybermen, seeing her family split apart, being torn from her universe and trapped here. His grip on her hand tightened again.

"You're right. That is complicated," he said softly. The doors of the Tube whooshed open and Rose stood abruptly, letting go of his arm and pointedly walking out the doors without a look back. He scrambled up after her and they emerged from the station without another word.

Wanting to bridge the newfound gap of silence, he asked "So, where is it that you work?"

She pointed to the large, shining multi-story building in front of them surrounded by very heavy security. "Torchwood?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yeah. Know a lot about aliens, me," she responded, tapping him lightly on the chest. "I just started on full time. Did a lot of consultin' while I was doin' my A-Levels and finishin' up University. Graduated in December," she finished proudly.

"Congratulations," he responded, giving her a pleased smile.

"Just wait out here. I've got to go in and get my car and you don't have clearance. Probably best that they don't find I'm runnin' around with an alien anyway," she winked and quickly strode away to the security point outside.

A few moments later, she emerged from the gate in a small blue sporty sedan. He climbed in the passenger side. They rode in silence for a few moments and just as he was starting to feel fidgety, Rose suddenly spoke.

"How's come no one else seemed to notice that there was a Victorian toff sittin' on the Tube?" she asked.

He laughed slightly at the name. "Perception filter. They see what they want to see and I can wear what I like."

"Bit like the psychic paper then?"

"Exactly! Very good, Rose!" She glanced at him when they stopped at a light and he grinned at her broadly. She marvelled at how that huge manic grin looked the same no matter on which face it appeared.

"So that's why you never changed your clothes no matter where we went," she said, thinking out loud. He nodded slightly. "I always wondered. There we'd be, standing in the middle of ancient Rome, me strugglin' with my toga and you chattin' away with Julius Caesar in your leather."

"Well, dressing up is all part of the companion experience!" he laughed. Then he wrinkled his nose. "Leather? Really?"

"Don't worry, you wear it quite well," she assured him. Rose laughed lightly as he preened a bit. Guess his little vanity streak didn't change either.

"Could be worse," he said. "Once I had a thing for capes. And scarves. And lurid colors," he shuddered.

"Why doesn't your perception thingy work on me?" she asked.

Staring out the window aimlessly, he thought for a moment. "I'm not sure, actually. It should. I mean when we travel together you see me in my regular clothes because you know I didn't change. But here it should have worked because you and I haven't met yet. Could be that you know me too well," he said, carefully. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye but didn't say anything so he continued.

"And your mind is...complicated. Strange. Might have something to do with that." He watched her for a reaction but other than a slightly stiffened posture, she offered him no information. No answers on that right now, apparently.

"You been lookin' in my head?" she asked, suddenly angry.

"No! Not on purpose, anyway. I just get an overall view like I do with anyone else. I see minds like you see faces," struggling to describe the Time Lord brand of telepathy. "I can't see you very well, though. You're different," he said, frustrated.

She relaxed a bit. "Good different or bad different?" she asked.

"Just different," he replied and was slightly puzzled at her faraway, amused glance.

They fell into easy conversation, mostly carried by the Doctor. He told her some light stories of his adventures and she asked questions and laughed in all the right places. He was really starting to enjoy her company. She was kind and compassionate, she made him laugh and she was very bright. He could see why future him had asked her to travel with him. He suddenly wished he could do the same.

Just outside the outskirts of urban London, they pulled up to a large, beautiful manor. It was not what he pictured from her accent and demeanor. It was, to use her word, very posh. She seemed to read his thoughts and laughed slightly. "'s not like this in my universe. Pete here is a millionaire, head of the Vitex corporation. Pop up here and suddenly I'm an heiress. The tabloids follow me everywhere," she said, rolling her eyes.

As they walked toward the front door, the Doctor noticed that Rose was very carefully not touching him. In fact, she seemed to be trying to keep as far from him as possible. He was about to question her on it when the door pulled open and a loud brassy blonde stepped outside.

"There you are! Took you long enough to get here! Dinner waitin' on the table an' your brother cryin' up a storm. Don't you look at me like that, Rose Tyler," she scolded, taking the girl's arm and dragging her inside. The Doctor followed hesitantly. Something told him this was a formidable woman he did not want to cross. She continued a litany of reproofs until the Doctor lightly coughed from the doorway.

"Oh! Rose's friend! 'ello there, sweetheart!" she said, blustering over to kiss him full on the mouth to his enormous surprise. "And who might you be?"

"I'm..."

"John Smith. Friend of mine from University, Mum. He's a medical student," Rose quickly said. The Doctor raised both his eyebrows and looked at her but said nothing to disprove her statement. She purposefully avoided his eyes.

"A future doctor, then?" Jackie said in an impressed tone and looking at Rose with what he thought was motherly approval, making him choke a bit ._Past, actually_, he thought.

Rose kept her face impassive and nodded, anxious to get her mother's attention off the Doctor. At least she couldn't see his odd clothing. "So, dinner, you said? Mickey here yet?" she asked nervously, eyeing the Doctor again. He looked confused.

"You're late, remember? Everyone's been here ages. Me slavin' away in the kitchen for hours and this is the thanks you give me," she said, slipping back into castigation.

"Oh, come off it, Mum. The servants cooked the food and you won't even have to clear up," Rose said, irritated. It was a risk, lying about who the Doctor really was but it seemed less risky than telling them all the truth.

She had no idea how Mickey and Jackie would react to having the Doctor here, especially since it wasn't either form they knew. Mickey had been a steady friend through her emotional ups and downs over the past few years but she knew he still had some unresolved issues with the alien. Jackie had been pestering her to "move on" for almost three years and had been desperately trying to force them into "one big happy family".

And Rose fully intended to make him take her out of this universe and back to her own, back to the Doctor when he left, a fact that her family would surely contest. She didn't want to have that fight now, especially not in front of him and especially because she hadn't ask him yet.

Dinner was a bit stiff, the Doctor thought. Pete was friendly enough but excused himself early for a business phone call, Jackie wittered on about various gossip that interested him in no way, the little boy screamed, the young man across the table kept glowering at him and Rose was uncharacteristically quiet. And Rose's lie meant that he had to keep coming up with background stories and effectively cut him off from asking the questions he had really wanted to ask. By dessert he was ready to capture Rose on his arm and make a hasty retreat and, judging by the look on her face, she was too.

"Well, Mum, that was lovely. Thank you for dinner! But John and I should really be gettin' back into town. His car's parked downtown an' I've got work in the morning," Rose said, giving him a meaningful glance, rising up from the table and he did the same. He had to admire her ease at making up stories. He wondered if she got that from him.

"It was quite the pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Tyler," he said, gallantly, using his brightest, most disarming smile and kissing her hand. She flushed with delight and shot Rose a look laced with meaning and Rose blushed scarlet as well. "Mickey. Nice to meet you as well," he said even though it hadn't been. The feeling apparently was mutual because the young man took his outstretched hand rather unwillingly and shook it with a bit more force than he thought necessary.

"Good then. We'll just be off," Rose said, ushering him to the door and pulling on her coat. Jackie grabbed her arm and whispered something in her ear. Even with his superior Time Lord hearing, he only caught a few words like "looker" "about time" and "moving on".

A red-faced and tense Rose brushed past him abruptly out the door and he had to jog slightly to catch up with her outside.

"What was that about?" he asked, although he really thought he probably knew the answer and didn't really like the implications. Or maybe he did. Maybe that was the problem.

"Nothin'. Just her stickin' her nose in where it doesn't belong. She does tha' a lot," Rose answered tersely.

"Rose, you and me, what..." he started.

"None of your business," she snarled, whirling on him, hands clenched into fists. She was reacting much as she has when they first met in the alley, morphing into what he recognized as "human-under-attack" mode.

"Actually, sounds like it is my business. A lot of my business," he said, stopping by the car, crossing his arms across his chest and glaring at her with steely blue eyes.

Rose stared daggers at him. It was so unfair, to have him standing there in that familiar position, with that familiar look even if the eyes were the wrong shade of blue. He wasn't her Doctor and he didn't deserve to ask her that question. Especially since she didn't know the answer. Her Doctor hadn't finished _that_ sentence on the beach and even though she thought she knew what he was going to say, hoped for it, prayed for it...he hadn't said it.

"Ok, ok. Never mind. Forget I said anything," he replied, pulling the car door open and depositing himself on the seat in a huff. He'd sat through that whole ridiculous human dinner ritual and had no more answers than when he'd started.

Rose opened her mouth and then closed it. She had been gearing up for the knock down drag out fight she would have had with the leather or pinstriped versions of him and he had surprised her with his easy surrender even though he clearly wanted to keep talking. Apparently he was passive aggressive this time 'round. Denied the release of yelling at him, she settled for storming around to the driver's door and pulling out of the driveway rather more violently than was strictly necessary.

"Would you care to slow down a bit?" he said, breaking the strained silence when they arrived in the outer shell of the city. "I'd rather make it back to my ship in one piece, if it's all the same to you."

Rose muttered under her breath in response.

"I beg your pardon?" he responded, shortly. The words she'd found amusing earlier now grated on her and highlighted again to her just how different he was.

"I said at least if somethin' happened to you then maybe you'd regenerate into someone I actually like," she retorted. She heard a sharp intake of breath beside her and knew she had gone too far. Remembering how sensitive her second doctor had been any time she had mentioned his predecessor she should have known it would hurt him now. Maybe that's why she had said it. She was about to back track, to apologize, when he spoke again.

"Sounds like you did a lot more than that," he said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Excuse me?" Rose said, her voice rising instead of lowering but matching his in danger.

"I heard what your mother was saying. What did you do? Desire me? Lust after me? Is that why you lied to them about who I was? Didn't want too much information out?" he said, his voice gaining some of her earlier snarl.

He recognized the warning signs, knew he needed to stop talking before he said something he couldn't take back but this body had nasty verbal streak when provoked. Undaunted and unable to stop himself he continued pretentiously, "No wonder future me hasn't come back to get you. I've dropped companions more qualified than you for less than that before." He heard her gasp, a horrid, raw sound and cursed himself. She slammed on the brakes.

"How...how dare you," she sputtered, twisting in her seat to face him. He was stunned by the expression on her face. He imagined this must be what it was like on the receiving end of his "Oncoming Storm" face. Or perhaps hers was even more terrifying.

"Out," she commanded.

"What?"

"I said out," she repeated, power and pain crackling underneath the surface of her voice.

She was staring out the front window now as though she had been turned to granite, putting up an immutable wall between herself and him. He knew he needed to fix this, to take it back, to make it better but nothing he could say would reach her now. Why was he such an idiot? He reluctantly pulled open the door handle and stepped out. As soon as he snapped the door shut, she sped away, leaving him stranded in the middle of zeppelin-filled London.


	2. Eight II

By the time he reached the TARDIS his feet hurt and he was in an incredibly foul mood. He yanked the door open and made to storm across the console room to his bedroom but stopped up short when he realized that the door was gone.

"Where's the door?" he growled at the TARDIS. She had offered him a greeting when he walked in but he had ignored her. "Nothing's wrong with me. Now put the door back." She refused and sent him a question.

"I don't know where she is. Her flat probably." An irritated hum.

"How should I know?" The irritated hum increased in pitch.

"How can she 'belong' here? We just met. And she doesn't belong anywhere. Certainly not in this universe." Irritated sounds turned to angry ones.

"All right, all right. We had a fight, ok? Both said some things we didn't mean. You know how bad I am at controlling my mouth in this body." The TARDIS made a derisive noise. "Ok, fine. Any body." Pressure on his mind. "Fine, I'll show you." He played back the memory of the evening for her, cringing as the hurtful words flew from his mouth and he was forced to watch Rose's reaction again.

He yelped and drew his hands back as the TARDIS sent a sharp current through the console at him accompanied by a heavy mental command. "Apologize? Why do I have to the be one to apologize? She was cruel, too," he said, childishly.

"What do you mean "we" need her? Who needs her? This me or future me? Or hell, past me! I don't know. Us? Since when have you ever needed a human around, if that's even what she is? This is all too confusing!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the console. Another shock and he stuffed his burnt fingers in his mouth.

"Fine. I'll go find her right now," he said around a mouthful of fingers. To his surprise, the TARDIS sent him a negative. "Well make up your mind!" A calm response. "How do you know she won't want to see me tonight? You barely know her."

Her response stopped him in his tracks and all his anger melted away. "What do you mean by that?" The TARDIS didn't respond. _I know her better than anyone_, she had said so resolutely, so calmly... as though she were simply stating a universal constant.

"I promise tomorrow I will find her and apologize. Now can I have the door back?" She hummed an apology at him and he immediately felt very selfish as he realized for the first time how tired the TARDIS sounded.

"I'm sorry. Was the damage really that bad? No, don't waste your energy with the back. I'll just stay out here. Don't need to sleep tonight anyway." Actually, he probably should...it had been weeks since he had slept last but the TARDIS couldn't support another room right now and he could help her out here anyway. With a sigh, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and slipped under the console. How was he going to fix things with Rose?

Rose got back to her flat and collapsed in bed fully clothed. She had managed to get upstairs before the tears had overwhelmed her but she hadn't been able to stop the traitorous thoughts his harsh words had brought up.

What if she had scared him away with her confession of love? What if this Doctor was right and hers had merely left her in this universe because she had gotten too close? Asked for something that he couldn't give? It was a convenient way to leave her behind...telling her it was impossible to return because she didn't know any better. Maybe this damn universe was her Aberdeen. She cried until she was exhausted and then fell into an uneasy, restless sleep.

When she awoke, she felt like hell. She was still in her clothes from yesterday and her make-up was smeared across her face. She briefly considered calling off work for the day but dismissed the thought. If she didn't go to work she would spend all day brooding about the Doctor. At least at work there would be distractions.

However, when she arrived at work it seemed people had other ideas. Her co-workers were greeting her strangely and kept dissolving into little groups as she walked past. She sighed. She recognized their reactions. This lot seemed just as fascinated by the tabloid coverage of her life as her fellow University students had been. Something must have shown up in today's tabloid. She eyed the cubicles and walked over to the one she thought would be her easiest target.

"All righ', Mitch. Hand it over," she said gruffly. The young man squeaked at her nervously and looked away. Even though she was new, she ranked much higher than him and he was a bit of a nancy anyway. Not meeting her eyes, he handed her a magazine.

She gasped. Displayed proudly on the front cover was a picture of her arm in arm with and smiling dumbly up at an unfiltered, beaming, Victorian Doctor with the caption "Romance Novel or Real Life?" Well, that was inconvenient.

How she managed to make it through the rest of the day, she didn't know. By five o'clock, she was sure she had heard every comment a person could possibly make about Jane Austen, BBC mini-series, Shakespeare and romance novels. Their conversation from the previous night did not help her irritation and by time she got back to her flat, she was ready to kill the next person who spoke to her.

She was just about to turn the key in the door when a soft voice behind her tentatively called, "Rose?" She whirled around and standing before her was a person she wouldn't mind killing at the moment. The Doctor was standing there with a bouquet of lilies, looking sheepish and apologetic. She'd seen that look before. Usually because he had taken her on an adventure that had ruined her favorite jeans. Or been incredibly rude. Or accidentally sold her into slavery. The look had never come accompanied by flowers before, though. Must be the pre-Time War reaction.

"What the hell do you want?" she asked, coldly. For a moment he looked like he was at a loss for words. Well, that was a first. Rose took his silence as an opportunity to yank the door open and slam it shut behind her until she discovered that there was a foot blocking it. A foot that was quickly followed in the door by its owner.

She made an irritated sound and continued into the flat, dumping her bag and coat on the couch and retreating into the kitchen. She'd make tea. She wasn't sure how to deal with any of this, so she'd make tea.

He hesitated, unsure whether to follow her or not. Oh well. He was here. He might as well go for broke. He found her in the kitchen, standing over the tea kettle. She turned back to face him, hands on her hips. He held the lilies out in front of him, half as a peace offering, half as a shield. Flowers seemed like a silly thing to give her but the TARDIS had told him to get them.

Rose accepted his proffered flowers and reached up for the vase on top of the refrigerator. She had always loved lilies. She took a deep breath and almost sighed. The TARDIS had always put a vase of them on her night stand. They smelled like home to her. The Doctor watched this with interest. Apparently the TARDIS had been right. He'd have to thank her again.

Rose's eyes hardened again and she turned back to him. He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Rose. I was angry and I lashed out at you. I know I don't understand your relationship to future me and it was wrong of me to make unfounded assumptions like that." When she said nothing in response, he stepped closer to her and took her hands in his own. She tensed at the contact and he was careful to avoid the clamor of her unshielded mind

"More than that, I'm sorry for what I said about coming back to get you. I'm sure if I could, I would. You're something special, I can tell that even now and, to tell you the truth, it scares me to death." She softened at his words and was blinking up at him. He could tell there were tears near the surface. He needed to finish and he edged even closer to her.

"I want to make it up to you. We both know you don't belong here. Will you let me take you back when I leave?" She really didn't have a choice. The timelines here were ripping and it was his duty to remove the source of the tear, but it felt important to offer it to her like this.

With Rose in heels they were practically the same height and, as she stared into his eyes, for a brief moment, he thought she was going to kiss him. To his surprise, his reaction to the thought wasn't entirely negative. Indeed, some part of him was something else entirely...hopeful? That was curious. Maybe he would have to investigate this whole kissing thing. Instead, the tea kettle whistled, making them both jump and leaving his question hanging in the air unanswered.

She released his hands and busied herself making the tea but he stayed close to her and studied her movements. She moved gracefully, almost too gracefully for a human. Her hands were steady as she poured the tea and her brow was furrowed as it had been before when she was thinking heavily.

Wordlessly, she handed him a cup of tea and left for the living room. They sat on opposite sides of the couch and stared ahead, drinking and thinking. Finally, she sat her cup down, removed her shoes and turned to face him, curling her legs underneath her body and leaning against the arm. He twisted to face her, folding one leg up on the couch.

"You have to take me back, don't you?" she asked. He tried to cover his surprised, guilty expression but she simply nodded. "You said I didn't belong here...that it was dangerous. Makes sense."

"Yes, I do," he confessed. "But I won't just dump you somewhere and then abandon you. I can track his, well, my, TARDIS down and make sure you get to him at the right time," he said, hoping the offer was good enough.

"He might not want me," she said so softly he almost didn't hear it. His hearts stopped for a moment, knowing that doubt was his fault.

"Not true, Rose. Not possible," he said. He scooted a little closer to her and laid his hand on top of hers across the back of the couch.

"How do you know? You're the one that said it," she responded with some of the fire from last night flaring in her voice.

"The TARDIS told me that I need you. That we need you," he responded seriously, shifting uncomfortably.

"Even this you?" she asked, using her free hand to poke him gently in the chest between his hearts. How did she always know exactly what question to ask?

He used his other hand to hold the poking hand to his chest, splaying the fingers so she could feel the thrum of his double heartsbeat. "Yes," he said softly.

"I'll go," she finally answered, giving him a bright, full-wattage Rose Tyler smile. He released her hand and wondered if she had noticed his hearts speeding up. Something else to investigate.

"Good," he said, beaming back at her and suddenly more aware of how close they had shifted together on the couch. "The TARDIS should be ready in about three days and I'd like to spend them with you, if that's all right," he said, almost shyly. Since when had he been shy?

She cocked her head to the side slightly and considered him. "It's all righ' with me," she said. "Fantastic, in fact." He grinned at her again. She leaned forward and for the second time that evening, he thought she was going to kiss him. Instead, she reached behind him and grabbed her black bag. "We've got a slight wardrobe malfunction, though," she said, pulling out a magazine and handing it to him.

He eyed her quizzically and accepted the magazine. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw the picture of them smiling up at him. "Tabloids, remember?" she said. "They're having a field day with you. Perception filter doesn't work on cameras, I take it?"

"No, it's based on brain waves and thought patterns," he responded, shocked. This was certainly a new experience for him. He snorted, imagining what the Council would say if they could see him now. A Time Lord reduced to tabloid fodder.

"Mum already called and asked if we went to a costume party after we left dinner. I've been deflecting people all day. So many Jane Austen jokes!" she groaned and collapsed back against the couch. He laughed and leaned back against his arm of the couch, thumbing through the magazine.

"Do you really think I'm a 'dashing and suave mystery man with chestnut curls and piercing eyes'?" he asked, reading from one of the columns.

"No, I think you're rude an' not ginger," she responded, sticking her tongue between her teeth and nudging his knee with her bare foot. He pouted for a moment and then retaliated by tickling her outstretched foot. She squealed and pulled it back underneath her body with the other one. "Regardless, we can't go outside with you still dressed like tha'," she said.

"Well what do you expect me to do about it? I don't suppose you have any men's clothing lying around here?" he asked, suddenly wanting to know. He certainly hoped she didn't.

"Nah, what to do you take me for?" she asked, taking up his familiar face of mock affront.

"Well, I do recall you told me yesterday you were an 'easy date'," he said, raising his eyebrow at her.

She gaped at him in the face of his blatant flirt. He was a bit surprised himself, but he wasn't about to back down now. Finally, she laughed. "Can't you just to back to the TARDIS and change into something more normal?"

"Ah, yes, well...that's a problem at the moment. She was so damaged in the landing, she's closed off the back rooms to use her energy repairing herself," he replied.

"So you're locked out of the rest of the ship? Where did you sleep last night?" Rose asked.

"Time Lord. Don't need to sleep," he said even though it was a slight lie. He really needed to get some sleep tonight.

She shot him a knowing glance. "Uh-huh. Don't forget I've known you for a while. You don't need to sleep MUCH but you still need to sleep. Can't count how many times I've found you in the library, snoring, with a book across your chest."

"Time Lords do not snore!" he retorted. She simply responded with another superior look.

"Why don't you just stay here? I've got an extra room. When the TARDIS can manage a small hop you can even bring her here," Rose offered.

"What, in the flat?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, why not? You used to do it all the time when we would visit my mum. Just parked her in the living room and displaced the TV cabinet. Think you did it mostly to annoy Mum," she laughed.

He considered that for a moment. He'd never thought about parking the TARDIS inside someone's flat before. Of course, he'd never really had much need. And it sounded like he had brought her back to visit her mum often. That sounded so...domestic of him. He couldn't remember ever even meeting the parents of a companion before.

"That's very hospitable, thank you Rose," he said. She inclined her head in acceptance of his speech. "But that doesn't really solve the clothes problem."

"Oh, right. Well, I could just go out shopping and buy you some clothes for the next few days. Or buy you one outfit and then you could come pick out the rest with me." She had added the last part as a sort of test...her Doctors both hated shopping.

Sure enough, he sneered a bit at the idea. "I pick out one outfit because it keeps me from having to do preposterous things like clothes shopping. Honestly, I don't know why you humans bother with so much clothing. It's not very efficient." She laughed and he was a bit puzzled. Oh. That's exactly what she had been expecting him to say, he gathered.

"Ok, then. I'll just pop out and pick you up some clothes then. What do you want?" She hoped he wouldn't be too specific. She'd never been able to pick out clothes for the Doctor before and it sounded very fun. She eyed him speculatively, assessing his size and to her surprise he blushed a little under her intense gaze.

"Nice things," he said, simply.

"Oh, drat. And I was going to pick out all horrid things," she responded, teasingly.

"You know what I mean. Dressy stuff. No jeans," he said, wrinkling his nose. She laughed again, harder this time. He wondered why.

"Ok. Nice things, it is," she said, grabbing her purse and heading toward the door. He protested a bit about money but she waved him off.

"Heiress, remember? Plus it's not like you have any money anyway, am I right?" she asked, knowing full well the answer. He hadn't even been able to buy chips after their first meeting.

"Right," he responded. She knew him so well it was a bit terrifying. And exhilarating. "Oh, and Rose? I'll need some of...well...everything," he stuttered, embarrassed suddenly. She turned back to him confused. "You know, socks and...things," he said. The TARDIS always just provided him with whatever he wanted. He'd never had to buy them before.

She looked confused again and he glanced at her meaningfully, his cheeks reddening a bit. "Oh! You mean pants," she said. "Ok, then. What, er...what kind do you want?"

"I don't know. Just pick something," he said, exasperated and wanting this section of the conversation to end. Talking with Rose about his undergarments was bringing up some thoughts he was pretty sure he shouldn't have.

"Right then, I'm off. TV's just in there, help yourself to any of the food." She picked up her keys.

"If you have any jam, use a spoon," she warned. He gaped at her. Why would he just eat jam? And if he did, why wouldn't he know to use a spoon? She merely shook her head and went out the door.

As it clicked shut, he realized he was bored already. Maybe he could take apart the toaster in the kitchen. That would be fun. Suddenly the front door opened again and Rose's head popped back in. "And don't touch my toaster!" she yelled.

Hours later, he collapsed on the couch. He was bored out of his mind. He'd already discovered four new settings on the sonic screwdriver, taken apart and reassembled Rose's toaster with moderate success despite her warning, read all of her magazines and toured the flat.

The flat was tidy and almost seemed barren as though it were merely a temporary dwelling place. He considered that thought. It was probably true. It seemed she had always intended to get out of this universe. She had said that earlier hadn't she? _Been trying to get back, but so far no luck_, she'd said.

Ignoring what he figured was standard social protocol, he decided to investigate her room as well. It was appallingly cluttered and he laughed to himself. It looked as though a hurricane had swept through this room. It was very Rose.

He studied the room closely and his eyes rested on a packed duffle by the door, sitting under a small table. On top of the table was worn picture that looked as though it had been folded up and carried around in a pocket. In the picture was a tall, lanky man with crazy hair, a red paper crown and the biggest smile he had ever seen. Wrapped around his waist and under his arm was a younger looking, blissful Rose Tyler. They were staring into each other's eyes as if nothing else in the entire universe existed. It was beautiful. He picked it up to examine it closer and then heard a key turn in the lock. He dropped the picture and hurried out of the room hoping he wouldn't look too guilty.

Rose pranced into the room and dropped an inordinate amount of shopping bags on the floor. She beamed at him. "I'm home! Oh, don't look at me like that. I wasn't sure what you'd like or what size you were, so I picked up lots of things! I've never been able to do this before!"

"Do what before?" he asked, carefully, picking his way through one of the bags.

"Dress you up like a Ken doll!" she replied, grinning at his appalled look. "Go on! Off to your room. Try 'em on. And I want a floor show!" She laughed again at his face. He hesitated, arms full of bags.

"Is this really necessary?" he asked. "We could just stay here. Or just forget about the tabloids."

"Are you kiddin' me? You and I would both go stir crazy in here. Plus I bet you already ruined my toaster," she said knowingly, shaking her finger at his guilty gaze. "Anyway, tomorrow's a bank holiday, then it's the weekend. We can go anywhere!"

"If we can go anywhere, why don't we just leave London where the tabloids take pictures of you and go somewhere else?" he asked, logically.

Rose chewed her lip. That was a good point. "Well, tomorrow night I have to go to a big party for Pete and if I'm going to be leaving my family forever after this weekend I'd like to spend some time with them now." He looked guiltily at her over that comment.

"Plus I'm going to guess that you don't really want to be that far separated from the TARDIS." He sighed. She was right, of course. She saw his resolve breaking down.

"C'mon! Just put on the clothes. It's all part of the Rose Tyler experience!" she said, laughing and reminding him of his previous statement about companions.

He huffed, exaggeratedly. "Oh, fine. But I'm not modelling for you!" he said as he disappeared into the back room. She had done a good job, he had to admit as he sorted through the clothes. They were all quite smart looking. He looked quite handsome.

He flushed a bit when he saw the pants she had picked out for him. It was a 10 pack of tight, black boxer-briefs. He didn't really think they were his style but he tried them on and realized...yes, in fact they were. They were perfect. How did she know that? He flushed again, thinking that it was possible Rose Tyler knew more about his future pants preferences than he did. He had accused her of lusting after him but he suddenly realized it was possible that was a two-way street.

He hadn't really considered it. Humans did base things like lust. Time Lords did not. In fact, they didn't engage in intercourse at all anymore, the looms had taken care of that. He'd experimented a few times over his long life but always out of scientific curiosity not passion and never with a human. True intimacy for a Time Lord was a complex, extended process and humans were so brief and fleeting. Bonding and relationships weren't done anymore anyway. A Time Lord and a human? Impossible.

But seeing the expression on what had to be his future face when he looked at her in that picture...and it explained his desire to have her kiss him and the elevated hearts rate he had felt earlier. Was he...attracted to her? He shook the thought away. It didn't matter. In three days he would take her back to a future him and he'd never see her again. Well, sort of. He rubbed his head. Crossing time lines was complicated.

He pulled on the set of jimjams she had purchased for him and went back out to the living room. He found her sitting on the couch in her own jimjams, cup of hot chocolate in hand, reading a magazine. She glanced up at him and motioned to the other cup of hot chocolate sitting on the table. "Not my most imaginative outfit, but you still wear it well," she said, laughing. He stiffened a bit under her words, remembering his thoughts about improper feelings and didn't respond.

She seemed to notice the shift and merely returned to her magazine. She didn't seem to want to leave his company and he didn't want to leave hers but they needed to do something. He could hear her thoughts buzzing away indecipherably at the edge of his consciousness. That would do.

"Do you know you're telepathic?" he asked, deciding to take the direct route in this conversation.

"Wha'?" she said, completely shocked. "No, I'm not."

"You are, actually. I didn't think you knew. You should really get it under control. It's quite distracting, you know. And if you ran into another telepath that wasn't as kind as me, it might not end very well for you," he said seriously. She needed some mental barriers or anyone could get in there.

"What're you talking about? I'm not telepathic. If I was, you would have told me already. In fact, you've made comments to me about how superior you are to humans because we're not telepathic," she replied.

He sighed. It was a bit irritating hearing her talk to him about things he hadn't done yet, but he didn't suppose there was any way around it. "Well maybe it's new then. Maybe you're only telepathic in this universe or something. Anyway, you should still get it under control. I can help you with that."

She studied him for a moment, biting her lip in a way he already recognized as habit. "Ok then," she said easily. He was again surprised at her absolute trust in him, her willingness to follow his lead.

"I'm going to have to be in your head a bit, helping you along at first. I'll try not to look at your memories or anything but it may be messy to start with," he said, honestly.

She considered him again and then nodded.

"First thing we need to do is access it. Come over here." They both shifted to the floor, sitting cross legged with their knees almost touching. Taking her hands in his and resting them on his knees, he took a deep breath. He could feel the heat radiating from her body and struggled to ignore it. He needed to focus.

"Close your eyes and try to imagine that you're looking in your mind. Like it's a big room and you're opening the door." Rose closed her eyes and tried to do as he said. She could feel a gentle presence in her mind, much like she did when she was aboard the TARDIS. She assumed that it was the Doctor.

"Yes, it's me," he answered out loud and he felt her surprise at his response. So the TARDIS connected with her mentally. That would help some. "Concentrate, Rose. Do you see the room yet?" He heard a sharp intake of breath and felt her hands tighten on his.

Rose gasped at the sudden awareness of her own mind. She could see everything...her emotions, her memories, her thoughts, her feelings...they were all swirling around in a haze inside her head. It was overwhelming and she started to panic.

"No, no. Calm down, Rose. Focus. You need to stay in there. Stay with me. We'll sort through it." The Doctor's voice was calm and cool, much like his hands on hers and the blue presence in her mind. _Blue?_ he thought to himself. That was odd. Maybe humans categorized in colors. He had never met a human telepath before.

Her breathing slowed again and she tried to make sense of the swirling mass. "You need to slow it down and start sorting out the pieces. Right now everything's jumbled together and your mind doesn't know what to do with it all." Slowly, Rose began to figure out how to separate the pieces of her conscious mind and categorize them.

He didn't know how long they sat there, cross-legged, holding hands but it seemed like both an eternity and no time at all. After what his internal Time Sense told him was four hours, they were both growing numb and Rose was sweating profusely.

"Rose, we need to stop for tonight. You're getting exhausted and so am I. Get ready, I'm going to break the connection." Slowly, he receded from her mind and extracted his hands from hers. He stared at her for a moment and waited until her eyes opened and she blinked slowly at him.

"Hello," she said hoarsely.

He blinked at the greeting. "Hello," he responded, smiling. She smiled back and then stood and shook herself.

"What time is it?" she asked him, knowing he could answer.

"3 AM," he said, rising and stretching as well.

"Oi. Good thing there's a bank holiday tomorrow. I'm goin' to need to sleep in after that. But first I'm goin' to need another shower," she said, wrinkling her nose at her damp clothing. "There's a shower attached to your room an' towels under the sink if you want a shower. See you in the morning, yeah?" He nodded. Rose leaned up and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered before turning to go to her own room.

He raised his hand to his cheek and watched her go. The spot still tingled with the heat of her lips. The familiar gesture so soon after being ensconced in her mind seemed incredibly intimate and he felt a surge of something that could definitely not be categorized as scientific curiosity. He pushed the thought away. It was going to be a long few days.


	3. Eight III

He slept fitfully considering he was separated from the TARDIS. It was usually difficult for him to sleep without her gentle background hum and soothing presence but it somehow felt like she wasn't far away. His conscious mind argued that this was impossible...the ship was on the other side of the city repairing herself in an alley far from him but his subconscious merely shrugged and told that part of him to shut it. He obliged.

It was not surprising that he woke before his little human roommate and so he showered and made his way into the kitchen. He grimaced at the now slightly misshapen silhouette of her abused toaster and set about making tea and finding biscuits in one of the cabinets, singing softly to himself. It was going to be a good day! New city, new universe, new companion! Well, "sor' of" as she would say.

A noise from the doorway made him look up and a bleary, tousled Rose stumbled into the kitchen still in her jimjams. She was adorable. He grinned broadly and opened his mouth to greet her, eager to start the day, but she merely held up a hand to silence him. He closed it and frowned slightly, watching her. She shuffled over to the tea kettle, poured a cup and sat down at the table. About halfway through her cuppa, she finally raised her head and returned his smile, looking at him with much clearer eyes.

"Not a morning person, I take it?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"You get used to it," she shrugged and nabbed a biscuit off the plate he had set out.

"I expect I will," he said and they both laughed. It was so strange to talk about a future and a past at the same time. Bound to get a little tangled up in the verb tenses, he thought.

"So what shall we do today?" he asked, stretching his legs out under the table and accidentally, perhaps, brushing her foot with his.

"I thought maybe I could show you around the town," she replied easily, trying to ignore the way his leg was grazing hers. It would not do to think about him like that. Wrong him. And maybe wrong feeling anyway. Even if he was looking positively gorgeous in one of the outfits she had picked out, fitted black dress pants accompanied by a dark blue dress shirt and a tie that matched his eyes. The curls hung damp around his face and he looked bright-eyed, well-rested and mischievous.

He noticed her eyeing him and she quickly ducked her head into her cup of tea, blonde hair falling forward over her cheeks to hide the blush. Feeling self-conscious, he smoothed out the tie. He felt ridiculous in this outfit. Maybe he looked it, too. That would explain why Rose had been staring at him.

"I've been to London before, Rose," he said. "Not, uh, not that I wouldn't love to see it again with you," he covered quickly. Four sentences into the conversation and he was already managing to muck it up.

She chuckled at his discomfort. "Not this London, you haven't. 's more than jus' the zeppelins." She lowered her voice conspiratorially and he obligingly leaned forward. "There's a statue of Maggie Thatcher in the square instead of Churchill," she whispered as if she were sharing a naughty secret.

"What, seriously?"

"Yep!" she said brightly, popping the "p" in an entertaining way. "They love her here." She sat back and laughed at his appalled face.

"Well, then. No wonder you want to get out of this place. Sounds like you have a lot to show me, Rose Tyler!" He was pleased that she seemed to be in such a good mood and the temporary shields they had put around her mind last night made the buzz of her thoughts much less distracting.

"Right, then. I just need a shower and a change then we'll be off. Don't you disappear," she said, grinning at him over her shoulder.

As if he could do that now, he thought. He was feeling a lot of curious things around her and not just the rather inappropriate ones he had stumbled on last night. At first, he had figured his level of comfort with her stemmed from her future association with him and then he had added in the fact that she was funny, fierce, beautiful and enigmatic. It seemed to run even deeper than that, though.

He had seen a glimpse of something strange in her mind last night, a locked piece that she didn't seem to notice. It had drawn him to it but he had been so distracted helping her and trying to stay out of her memories he hadn't been able to investigate. And now that he had connected with her mentally, he found he wanted desperately to do it again. Her mind was strange and unique and enticing.

Enticing? Why did he keep thinking things like that? Any Time Lord would have been intrigued by her mental signature because it was an anomaly...something to be studied and researched with detached interest, of course. But what he was feeling was a lot more than interest and it was definitely not detached.

He sighed and wandered over to study her almost empty bookshelf. He always forgot how incredibly long his female companions took to get ready. Finally Rose appeared, wearing tight-fitting jeans, tall boots and a red leather jacket. She had left her hair down and lightly applied make-up and he momentarily felt his breath stutter. Definitely not detached, he thought, exhilarated and a bit terrified.

They spent the morning and afternoon wandering the streets of parallel London with Rose pointing out the differences she had found in easy conversation.

"See? Look at the Column. Griffins instead of lions. And no, I already checked. There are no real griffins here," she said as they arrived in Trafalgar Square.

"Of course not. Griffins are from the Thrilian Galaxy, ages away from here. And they're not nearly that big. Rather like your little Earth chickens. Annoying, vile creatures...nasty bite. They actually...," he trailed off to find Rose staring up at him with great interest and a touch of amusement.

"Why'd you stop? Go on, then," she said.

"Go on with what?" he asked, at a loss.

"Your science babble! C'mon, keep goin'! Give us a lesson about the atmosphere or the plants or the biology of the fish. I know you want to," she said, teasingly. It was easy to see her Doctors in him when he was like this. Always eager to be the teacher, to know and share. And she loved it when he was like this, although she had never told him. She would tell him as soon as she got back. Right after she snogged him, hopefully.

"I do not babble!" he said with an exaggerated frown.

"Right, o' course," she said, knowingly, sticking her tongue between her teeth and grinning at him. He opened his mouth to argue again but she simply took his hand and drug him off to see something new. This body used to walking arm-in-arm not hand-in-hand but found he rather enjoyed it. He smiled at her retreating back and then resumed his lecture on griffins and Thrilians. And he included a little about the biology of their fish for good measure.

"The telephone boxes are mauve!" he exclaimed as they came upon some American tourists cramming themselves in the signature London landmark.

"Not dangerous though." She flashed a brilliant smile at him and they continued along their way, talking, laughing and enjoying each other.

"Oh! 10 Downing Street!" he pointed out to her as they paused down the street to eat the sandwiches and crisps Rose had purchased for lunch.

"Still have one here, yep," she said, her eyes glittering mischievously.

"What do you mean 'still'? What happened to yours?" he asked.

She grinned at him evilly. "We blew it up."

He dropped her hand and turned to look her full in the face. "We WHAT? We blew up 10 Downing Street? Why on Gallifrey would we do that? No, wait. Don't answer that." It sounded just like something he would do but still he was a little shocked...and impressed.

"Who's the Prime Minister?" he asked, wondering if it was anyone he knew.

"President, actually. Harriet Jones," she said, giving the name a weight he didn't understand. Someone he would know later, then. He wondered how much later he would meet Rose, to start for him what she had already lived through. He was having so much fun with her now it didn't seem fair that he would have to go and forget it all in just a few short days and then live without her, not that he would remember. Now that he had found Rose Tyler he was discovering he didn't really want to be without her. He felt a pang of sympathy for the man he would become who probably felt the same way except with two years of getting used to her constant presence instead of a mere two days.

"You all righ' over there? You looked like you were a million miles away," Rose said, peering at him with concern. Sometime during their meal her warm hand had found his again and they sat, fingers entwined, on a Downing Street bench.

"I'm always all right," he offered, remembering her response to that answer when they first met and curious to see if it happened again. Sure enough, Rose's eyes clouded with memory but this time she looked away from him and her hand in his tightened. He wondered if it was on purpose or out of habit.

"Now you look like you're a million miles away," he said, softly.

"Wish I was sometimes," she responded sadly, thinking of the alien she missed so dearly who was currently a whole universe away and yet sitting next to her.

He bumped her gently with his shoulder and squeezed her hand. "Don't worry. You'll be back there soon. And...in the meantime, I'm right here." The look she gave him in return made his hearts swell and speed up to unnaturally fast gait. She reached up to his face with her other hand and brushed some of the curls from his eyes. For the third time in less than 24 hours, he closed his eyes as Rose leaned forward slightly and waited for a kiss...that didn't come.

Slightly confused, he cracked open one eye to see her studying his hair and face carefully with a light frown and a slightly guilty looking expression. He saw something in her gorgeous hazel eyes shift.

Rose was fighting a losing internal battle. She found herself falling for him again, hard. She had almost kissed him. Again. He had made it clear in the car yesterday that he was not interested in anything of the sort and, on top of that, she'd only known him for two days! Well, two years and two days. Well, sort of. Why did he have to be so complicated? She'd never kissed him...leather or pinstriped and to want to kiss him now felt like a betrayal of the man she was trying to get back to. No, _would_ get back to. In just a few days.

She stood quickly and dropped his hand. "Well! Shall we go check on your TARDIS, then? We're not far away." With that, she collected their wrappers and breezed off toward the Eye, leaving him behind, feeling confused, rejected and rather chilly without her encompassing warmth.

He stood and stared after her. What had that been about? Why was she running from him? As he jogged to catch up with her, he replayed their conversation. His mind stuck on her sentence about the TARDIS.

She had said "your" TARDIS not "the" TARDIS and she had been studying him so closely...and feeling guilty. Oh. She was seeing him as a different man. He sighed. That was generally why companions didn't stay on through regenerations. It was too hard to reconcile the him they knew with the him he became no matter how hard he tried to convince them. But she had said she knew two of him and she'd been taking everything so in stride. Why was she balking at the idea now?

At any rate, he wasn't going to let her shut him out. He caught up to her easily and made to catch her hand as she seemed to like but she quickly stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket. Not to be outdone, he audaciously reached into her pocket and entwined his fingers with hers inside. Infinitely surprised and completely at a loss, Rose just left his hand there, the intimacy of the touch throwing her off again. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go ahead and enjoy his company.

"So, you said something about there being a big event tonight?" he asked as they walked across the bridge, striking out for a topic quickly while she still seemed off balance from his abrupt capture of her hand.

"Um...yeah. There's a party for one of Pete's big investors an' the family's all supposed to make an appearance," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"You don't sound too excited about it," he said, dryly.

"Nope. They're usually boring. Bunch o' rich, snooty people only interested in themselves. Only good thing is tha' I get to wear a fancy dress. Oh, an' there's an open bar," she said.

"Have you got a plus one for the evening?" he asked, a little nervously. It was bold, pursuing an invitation right after her dismissal, but he was feeling bold, his fingers still warm in her pocket.

"You angling for a date, Doctor?" she said, the flirt back in her voice. She couldn't believe that he was offering to go a party with her. She figured he would have wanted to fiddle with the TARDIS or...well, anything except go with her to a society party.

"Gentleman that I am, I wouldn't want a beautiful young woman such as yourself to go unaccompanied to what I am sure is the social event of the season," he said, stroking his thumb against the back of her hand in the pocket and exaggerating his words to make her grin again. He was already addicted to that bright smile.

Rose tried to consider his offer logically but it was very difficult with his thumb doing that. "You'll have to wear a tux," she said slowly as if that would be a deal breaker.

"Can I just wear my regular clothes?" he asked, innocently. They were nice and dressy.

"No," she frowned. "It's not a costume ball."

"But Rooooosee," he whined. _Boy, that whine sounded familiar_, she thought. "No one else will know. And it's not a costume!" he added.

"I'll know," she said. "And the tabloids will be taking pictures," she reminded him. He exaggerated another frown and heavy sigh, more to entertain her than anything else. "No tux, no date," she said, firmly.

"Oh, ok. Have it your way. I will wear a tuxedo," he said, pretending to concede a huge battle for her. Really, he didn't mind wearing a tux. And he generally looked quite smashing in them, if he did say so himself. Looking smashing for Rose seemed to be a priority at the moment. And she had said "date". What did that mean? What did he want it to mean? This whole attraction thing was quite complicated, it seemed.

"Will the TARDIS have the wardrobe room back up or do we need to go rent you one someplace?" she asked. They had almost reached the alley where the ship was waiting.

"I'm not sure. I'll have to check with her when we get inside. What are you thinking about now?" he asked, noticing that she had the faraway look again and was biting her lip.

"I can hear her," Rose said, puzzled. "The TARDIS, I mean. I almost always could when I was inside, but I can hear her now." Now that Rose was more aware of her mind, she could actually hear the TARDIS' hum even from this far away. That would have been useful all the times she had run after vacuum cleaners.

"Really?" He was genuinely surprised. He could barely hear the ship and she was bonded to him. "That's strange. You said yesterday that you felt the TARDIS in your mind, that she communicates with you, is that right?" That in itself was a bit strange. The TARDIS always translated for his companions but she rarely, if ever, conversed with them.

"Well, yeah. And technically I _thought_ that earlier. You were just in my head too, remember?" she said with a little tease and a little steel in her voice.

Oh, he remembered. And she didn't need to know how much he wanted to do it again. He considered her words. "What do you mean you could 'almost' always hear her?"

"Well, at firs' she was just translatin' an' stuff. Then after I," she paused and looked at him, "well, later, it got easier. Now, I get colors an' emotions. And pictures of things sometimes. No words, just more like ideas," she stumbled to explain. They had reached the TARDIS and Rose took her free hand from her pocket and laid it on the wooden door, feeling a wave of orange warmth and welcome surge to her.

Letting go of her hand to unlock the door he pondered her words carefully. That was a bit like how the TARDIS communicated with him but he sometimes got words and never colors. He'd never heard of a TARDIS talking with anyone like that and certainly never a human companion. Clearly there was a history between the two of them and he wondered what had happened. He wanted to ask her or the TARDIS but it seemed like something he couldn't know, of course. Maybe it had something to do with that mysterious locked piece hidden away in her mind.

The ship greeted him and Rose was surprised that she could feel the wave of welcome washing over her too. She listened curiously as they started to exchange some technical jiggery pokery about mechanics and quickly grew bored, focusing instead on memorizing the differences in this console room. A picture of the wardrobe room flashed in her mind along with an affirmative hum and she turned back to face the Doctor, smiling. "Wardrobe room's a go then?" she asked.

He whipped around to look at her with his mouth open. "You heard that?" he asked incredulously. "Could you hear me, too?" Even if she could hear the TARDIS because they were connected somehow, she shouldn't have been able to hear his side of the conversation.

"Was I not supposed to? I wasn't listenin' on purpose, but I could hear it all, yeah," she said, confused.

"Can you hear me now?" he asked.

She concentrated and closed her eyes. "Not exactly, no. I mean, I can tell you're there, blue an' all, but I can't hear what you're thinkin'," she said. She could see the blue of his presence and the gold of the TARDIS but neither of them were actively communicating at the moment. "'s like you have shields up or somethin'," she said.

"What about now?" He dropped some of the shields on his mind and pushed a thought toward her. She shouldn't be able to pick up on it, not without physical contact from him or a mental link of some kind but he was curious.

Rose received a picture of a white bag with candies inside it along with a question. "You're offerin' me a jelly baby?" she asked, opening her eyes.

"Yes," he said, pulling a white bag from one of the drawers in the console room and holding it out to her. She took one politely and pretended like it was perfectly normal to have an entire drawer of jelly babies.

He carefully rearranged his shields. "That's very interesting, Rose. You shouldn't be able to hear me like that. We should check it later," he said, enraptured by the thought.

"Can the TARDIS take us back to the flat?" Rose asked, munching on another jelly baby.

"Yes. She said she can make the short trip so we can change for the party there . And we won't have to take the Tube!" he said, triumphantly. It was slow, dirty and not nearly as interesting as he thought it would be.

"Fine with me! I was hopin' maybe she would have a suggestion on wha' I should wear," Rose answered. She certainly had missed the infinite wardrobe of perfectly tailored beautiful clothes. A picture of a gorgeous, short golden dress appeared in her mind. Rose grinned and giggled a bit. That would certainly do.

"What?" he asked. He tried to imagine his ship offering fashion advice and it made his brain want to short out.

"You didn't see that?" wondered Rose. So the TARDIS was communicating one on one with her and letting her listen in on the Doctor. It was nice to have a girlfriend. The TARDIS sent a wave of purple amusement and pink affection to her.

"No," he said, irritated. He felt like he was being ganged up on by the women in his life at the moment.

"Well, then you'll just have to wait and see," she said cheekily. The TARDIS responded in a similar fashion and he sighed. If he had ever doubted that his TARDIS was female, he didn't anymore.

"Shall we stop at TESCO before we go back to your place? I believe I promised you dinner the other day," he said, desperate to change the subject and get away from at least one temperamental woman. The TARDIS huffed at him.

"You cook?" she asked, genuinely surprised. Her first Doctor could barely manage soup from a tin. He'd been living on weird, bland energy bars before she came along (which he had insisted were perfectly nutritious and provided everything he needed but yet didn't seem to mind when she started cooking for him). Her second Doctor had a rather strange affinity for French cooking (she didn't want to contemplate that too much) but other than that was quite useless in the kitchen. Usually because he got distracted about two minutes in and burned everything.

"Yes, Rose Tyler, I cook. In fact, I cook quite well," he boasted. And he did. An hour later, she sat at the counter sipping a glass of wine while he moved about her kitchen with a grace and comfort she couldn't quite believe. The TARDIS hummed away comfortingly from the back bedroom and Rose felt very peaceful. As he sliced, stirred and steamed he chattered to her about everything and nothing and she watched him with fascination.

"That has to be one of the most delicious dinners I have ever had," Rose complimented, leaning back from her plate and feeling very full. He beamed at her, glad to have delivered on his boast.

" I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's much more fun to cook for another person. And if you thought that was good, I'll have to take you to Coricana sometime. Best Italian food you'll get this side of the galaxy," he said, still grinning from ear to ear.

"Yep, you'll have to do that," she said, smiling back at him and wondering which "you" she meant. "We should start getting ready for the party, yeah? We don't want to be late. Can't keep my press waiting," she said, sighing in a dramatic fashion and placing the back of her hand on her forehead.

"We still have three hours!" the Doctor exclaimed, dubiously. "What could you possibly have to do that will take three hours?"

"Shower, nails, hair, shoes, make-up, the whole female hat trick," Rose said, ticking things off on her fingers and leaving her chair to walk toward the back bedroom. "Just let me grab my outfit from the wardrobe room and then I'll leave you to tinker with the TARDIS until I'm ready."

"I do not 'tinker' with anything. Everything I do under that console is important and necessary for the health and upkeep of my magnificent timeship," he said, following her through the halls and twirling his screwdriver.

" 's not what she told me," Rose teased, disappearing through the blue doors.

"She...what? What did she say?" he called after her retreating back. She didn't answer and he felt the tinkling laugh of the TARDIS. He heaved a long suffering sigh and wedged himself underneath the console.

A few moments later, he felt a tap on one of his outstretched feet. He raised his head for the pile of wires he had been splitting and Rose smiled at the ridiculous blinking torch he had strapped on. Another familiar site. "Don't forget. Tuxedo. Three hours," she said, flouncing out of the TARDIS with a garment bag and a pair of precarious heels in her hands.

Exactly two hours and eighteen minutes later, he emerged from the console, grabbed his tuxedo, immensely pleased that she had provided him one with a vest and cravat, and went back out into his borrowed bedroom to shower and get dressed. He wished the TARDIS would finish with his bedroom, already. He didn't understand why she could manage the wardrobe but not his room. When he asked, she was very vague and he got the feeling she was trying to evade him. He left his room, dressed and dashing, to sit on the couch in the living room with four minutes left on the three hour deadline.

One minute and twenty-six seconds later, Rose glided into the living room, a vision in gold. Thirty-two seconds after that, he remembered to breathe again, grateful that his respiratory bypass kept him from looking like a gaping idiot. Twelve seconds after that, he picked his jaw up off the ground.

She looked absolutely stunning. He hungrily gazed at her from head to toe, unable to tear his eyes away. Her hair was in loose curls around her face and she wore a small, shy smile. The golden dress the TARDIS had picked for her clung to her body in all the right places and swept out in the others. It ended abruptly mid-thigh, displaying a tantalizing expanse of gorgeous toned legs that ended in possibly the sexiest strappy sandals he had ever seen. Wait, since when did he find women's footwear sexy? Actually, since when did he find anything sexy? But he certainly did now and his body was beginning to react both to the image in front of him and the sudden flood of pheromones in the air. His hearts sped up and his normally cool, dry palms were clammy. Judging by the pheromones, she approved of what she was seeing, too.

They continued to stand and stare at each other long past what he felt was probably the social norm. Oh well. He never was one for "normal".

"Rose Tyler," he breathed, taking a step toward her, "you look -"

He was abruptly cut off by the ringing of her mobile. Their intimate moment was broken and Rose flushed scarlet and turned from him to answer it. He took a the moment to gather his scattered thoughts together and listened in on Rose's conversation.

"Right, Mum. We'll be right down." Confused sounds from the other end of the phone. "Oh...I forgot to tell you. John is comin' with me. It was a spur of the moment thing...wha'? Oh, yes, he's in a tuxedo." Rose looked exasperated and rolled her eyes at him. A sound that was suspiciously like a squeal emitted from the phone and Rose blushed lightly again as she glanced at him shyly. He watched, fascinated, as the blush spread from her cheeks downward over the sumptuous expanse of skin displayed to him and disappeared into her dress. He had the sudden inexorable urge to follow that path with his tongue. He shook himself lightly and focused back on listening to Rose. "Yes, he does. Very nice," she said. He smiled and straightened his back at her assessment.

"C'mon," she said, snapping the phone shut. "Limo's waitin' downstairs." He gallantly helped her into her coat, opened the door for her and then offered her his arm. When they reached the top of the stairs, he stopped and moved his cool hands to grasp both of her warm ones, turning her to face him in the narrow stairwell. The tantalizing smell of something that was just so...Rose and her incredible heat were overwhelming him in their close quarters.

"I didn't get to finish my sentence," he said, gazing into her eyes. She started to look down at her feet but he released one of her hands to grasp her chin and lifted it lightly. "You look absolutely stunning," he said sincerely. She rewarded him with a brilliant, beaming smile that lit up her entire face and she squeezed his hand.

"You look incredible, too," she said. He felt wave of deep affection thrum through his body and swell in his hearts.

"Well...let's go make the cover of a few tabloids," he said, moving her hand to his arm again and walking shoulder to shoulder with her down the stairs. A long black limo was waiting by the curb and as they approached, the door flung open. Rose scooted into the seat as elegantly as she could wearing a dress of that length and was glad that she had chosen to wear a long-ish coat. Getting out of the limo with her modesty in tact might be a little difficult.

The Doctor slid wordlessly in beside her and couldn't help but notice that once in front of her family and the glowering young man, he remembered to be Mickey, Rose no longer seemed to want to touch him. Instead of radiating intoxicating pheromones as she had been moments ago, tension and apprehension were rolling off her, leaking thorough her mental shields. He was about to scoot closer to her and take her hand when, in a flurry of chiffon, Jackie Tyler deposited herself between them.

"Rose was righ'! You are an absolute dish!" Jackie gushed at him, adjusting his bowtie and fussing over him. He could smell alcohol on her breath and Pete apologetically held up a half-full bottle of champagne from the other bench seat.

Rose snickered as Jackie reached up to tousle his hair. Her mum was always a bit handsy when she was tipsy, much to the dismay of her other Doctors.

"She always has had a thing for men with big hair," Jackie slurred, wiping the smirk of Rose's face.

"And big ears," Mickey said icily from his sullen corner. The Doctor was a bit confused but he guessed by Rose's expression both her mother and Mickey were referring to the versions of him they knew.

Jackie leaned in toward him conspiratorily and he had to keep himself from backing away from her breath. "I dunno wha' you did to make her forget abou' _him_, but you keep on doin' it," she whispered in a loud voice. Rose looked horrified. "Bet it's because your hair isn't the only thing tha's bi-"

"MUM! That's enough," Rose practically shouted. She pushed Jackie back over to her side of the limo and stoutly refused to look at anyone in the eye for the rest of the short ride. An uncomfortable silence fell over the group and he couldn't help but feel relieved when the limo stopped in front of a very fancy old-fashioned building.

Pete exited first, holding out a hand to help Jackie and Mickey quickly followed. The Doctor turned in the seat to Rose, who didn't turn to face him. "Well, that was a bit awkward," he said, honestly. Despite herself, Rose laughed a bit. "Tell you what. Let's just pretend that whole thing didn't happen. Especially the bit where your mother kissed me," he said, making a face. Rose laughed more genuinely this time and the two of them exited the limo, smiling at the bright flashes and shouted questions of the waiting press.

Inside the party and away from the prying eyes of her family, Rose relaxed and took his arm, leading him around the room and introducing him to people. They settled at a table on the edge of the dance floor and fell into comfortable conversation unaware that across the room, Mickey Smith was watching them carefully.

The Doctor noticed Rose eyeing the dancers on the floor wistfully. The string orchestra was playing a waltz and he stood and offered her his hand. "Would you care to dance, Ms. Tyler?"

"Wha', really? I'd love to!" Her face lit up and she practically drug him out onto the floor. Laughing at her exuberance, he pulled her into a traditional dance hold and they easily fell into a perfect rhythm with each other.

"Where did you learn to waltz?" he murmured in her ear, probably a bit closer than was necessary but the music was loud, he told himself.

She grinned up at him, sticking her tongue between her teeth again. "From Johann Strauss, Jr. 1835. And from you," she replied, fondly remembering the trip. She had pestered the Doctor into taking her shortly after he admitted to her that he danced. She had spent most of her early evening in the company of the charming young composer but soon her flirting became too much for her gruff companion and he had barged in and scared the other man off, claiming her hand for the rest of the evening. She sighed, remembering the Viennese evening spent in the arms of her favorite anachronistic alien.

"The Waltz King himself? Good choice," he said, enjoying the way she pulled him closer as she lost herself in memories. They spent the next hour on the dance floor, weaving in and out of other couples, talking and laughing softly to each other. A few other men asked to cut in, but Rose declined each time, preferring to remain in his arms. Finally, the orchestra took a break and Rose begged off to go to the loo.

"Just got to powder my nose," she said, waving at him. The Doctor watched her appreciatively as she walked away, swinging her hips. He worked his way through the crowd and stepped out on the balcony into the cool night air.

Tonight was shaping up to be one of the best evenings of his long life. It was, of course, completely against everything he had been taught (and subsequently ignored) but that was just him, wasn't it? He couldn't do anything more about it, even if he wanted to. Two more days, that's all he had with her, for now anyway.

He sighed and turned to go back inside, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and looking around the room for Rose. He was already starting to miss her, as ridiculous as that seemed. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he smiled broadly, turning to face her and instead found himself nose to nose with one Mickey Smith. The young man regarded him coldly as he had done before.

"Hello, there," the Doctor said, wondering what he had possibly done to make this boy hate him so much.

"I know who you are," Mickey said simply. The Doctor stared at him. How could he possibly know?

"You're the Doctor, even if you don't look like 'im," he stated. The Doctor didn't respond.

"Thought as much," Mickey said. To his surprise, the younger man grabbed his arm and drug him from the room into an empty one down the hall, leaving his champagne glass forgotten on the bar.

"I can tell by the way she looks at you," Mickey snarled, answering the Doctor's unspoken question. He tried to hide his surprised expression at the assertion. How did she look at him?

"And what kind of a name is John Smith? Talk about lame. I checked the records...there is no John Smith at Rose's university. Just thought you'd swan back in here and take her away from us again, did you? Not even tell us who you really were? Didn't want to deal with the consequences? D'you know what it's been like for her here these past three years?" he hissed.

"Jumping at every loud noise, looking on every corner for a blue box, crying herself to sleep? Spending every spare moment trying to find a way back to you. Where've you been? You promised her! Or did you forget about that? And then just as she starts getting on with her life, you prance back in! You're a right git, you are. A selfish git. Always thinking about yourself, not caring who you hurt along the way," he ranted.

"What took you so long to get here, anyway? Find another pretty piece of French fluff to distract you? It's been a lot longer than five and a half hours, mate. Was then too, but she didn't want to make you feel bad about it. Try twenty-two and a half hours. And she never moved from that spot, just sitting there staring and waiting for you. She was protecting you even then." The Doctor didn't know what the boy was talking about, but it sounded like he had done something horrid to Rose...in France, of all places.

Mickey was really angry now. The more he said, the more he wanted to say. Five years of knowing the Doctor, five years of frustration all built up to one altercation.

Undaunted by the look of utter confusion on the Doctor's face, Mickey continued, "I shoulda stopped her then. Knew you would break her heart in the end. And I was right. You did. And you nearly broke her, too. She was a right mess for a while after she got here. And we've had to pick up the pieces, just like I knew we would."

"I know you're going to take her from us again...there's nothing that would stop her from going and I certainly know I can't stop you. She doesn't belong here anyway. She never did, never will. But there are two things I can do." The Doctor looked into the other man's eyes. He meant every word of this and he had obviously been waiting years to say it.

"First, I'm going to say this. Rose is the greatest girl I've ever met and she loves you. You don't deserve it and I don't know what the hell she sees in you but she does. So much. And I don't know what game you were playing at the two years she was with you but it's obvious to the entire universe that you love her and I don't care what your screwy alien head thinks about it, you damn well better tell her. NOW." The Doctor, too shocked to do anything else, nodded dumbly.

"And second, I'm going to do something I've wanted to do for a long time," he said. And with that, Mickey drew his fist back and punched the Doctor square on the jaw as hard as he could before storming from the room, leaving surprised man sprawled on the floor.

The Doctor sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw. That boy packed a mean right hook. But more than that, he was reeling from the information he had been given.

He flashed back to Rose's story of being trapped in this universe. She hadn't said "separated from my universe" or "separated from my world". She had said "separated from you". It wasn't the universe she had been mourning all these years.

It was him.

What was he to this girl? And what was she to him? She was so young and _human_. She couldn't possibly...and he certainly couldn't...well. He didn't know. He felt a small tinge of guilt at his earlier assumption that he had trapped her here on purpose. Now he got the feeling that was about as far from the truth as possible.

He remembered her flushed face at her mother's prodding and her utter reluctance to discuss their relationship with him.

He remembered her initial reaction when she found out he was the Doctor.

He remembered the look on their faces in the worn picture from her flat.

But if she meant so much to him...why hadn't he just come and gotten her from this universe? Unless something had happened to prevent him from crossing dimensions. He flashed back on the look of pity Rose had given him when they first met and on her non-reaction to Romana's name. But that could only mean...no. It was impossible.

He forced his thoughts back to Rose. Mickey had said that she loved him. And that he loved her. He resolved himself to ask her even though the last time he had done that it had ended in that huge row. He had to know.

Outside, the party was starting to dwindle down. Mickey was no where to be seen but it wasn't hard to find Rose. She was leaning on the bar, sipping a glass of champagne and talking to a good-looking prat. He felt a surge of jealousy rise through his body. So what if he wasn't the him she was supposedly in love with even if a small part wanted it to be? He was leaving and she was coming with _him_. Not some pretty idiot from the bar.

She felt his cool hand on her arm, turned and, seeing his face, her smile instantly turned into concern. "What's wrong?" she asked, recognizing his tense posture and furious expression.

"We're leaving. We need to talk. That all right?" he asked, shortly, grabbing her hand and practically dragging her away.

"Yeah, sure. Just let me say goodbye to Mum and Pete," she said, unsure of his sudden surge of testosterone. Very leather him, she thought. The cab ride from the party back to her flat was silent but he wouldn't let up his fierce, tight hold on her hand and so she had to struggle one-handed to get money from her small bag to pay for the cab. They wordlessly traipsed up to her flat and once inside, she broke.

"What is with you?" she asked, furiously yanking her hand from his. "I thought we were havin' a good time. An' then you disappeared an' then you drug me out an' now you're not talkin' to me." She crossed the room to deposit her coat on the couch and stared at him, arms across her chest in a very good rendition of his familiar pose.

"Mickey knew who I was," he said, running a hand through his hair and taking off his tux jacket, discarding it on the floor in a manner quite unlike himself. He stormed over to face her and stood on the opposite side of the couch, where he had sat the night before. "He pulled me aside and yelled at me and then he punched me," he said.

"He punched you?" Rose asked incredulously. "What did you do?"

"_I_ didn't do anything!" he responded. "But apparently future me is a complete git."

"What did he say to you?" she asked, in a low voice.

"Lots of things about not getting here sooner and something about twenty-two hours in France," he said, waving his hand. Rose looked horrified. "But that's not all," he said, taking a step closer to her. She stared at him with wide eyes but didn't move from her spot.

"He said you love me. Is that true?" he asked, his eyes piercing hers, waiting desperately for her answer.

"Yes," she said quietly, her own eyes never leaving his.

"Do I love you?" he asked, just as quietly.

She closed the distance between them and put her hand on his chest, between his hearts. "I don't know," she responded. "Do you?"

He felt his breathing quicken and, in an instant, he made a decision. He bent his head to hers and kissed her softly. She responded quickly and he revelled in the feeling of her pliable lips on his, warm and delicious. Tentative, shy and gentle...everything a first kiss should be. Her hands moved to the back of his neck while one of his cradled her back and the other tangled in her hair. Finally, they broke apart. Rose was breathing hard and he had engaged his respiratory bypass without even noticing.

They stared at each other for a moment and then their lips met again. It was sweet and tender...until suddenly it wasn't. He wasn't sure who deepened the kiss first, but suddenly their tongues were battling for dominance, teeth were clashing and hands were no longer stationary. She ran her tongue over the roof of his mouth and he groaned, a sound that surprised them both.

He fell back onto the couch and she was instantly on his lap, straddling his legs in her short golden dress. The smell of her arousal was all around him and he was impossibly hard. He pressed her body up against his and it was her turn to moan as he traced kisses along her jawbone and she felt the evidence of his own arousal against her body. She rocked her hips against him and he returned to her mouth, pushing his tongue inside as a harbinger of things to come.

"Bedroom," she commanded and slid off his lap, making sure to give as much friction as possible with that action. He could only nod in return, all coherent thought long gone, and took her outstretched hand, letting her lead him to her bedroom. As soon as they were in the door, she resumed kissing him, slowly removed his cravat and began to unbutton his vest. He responded in kind, finding the zip on the back of her dress and slowing drawing it down.

They broke for a moment as he removed his shirt and vest and sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes, his eyes on her the entire time. She eyed the newly revealed expanse of skin and admired his full chest, his taut stomach and his strong arms. He felt his respiratory bypass kick in again as she slowly reached up to the tiny straps on her shoulders and drew them down, stepping out of the dress and standing before him in only her knickers, bra and strappy sandals.

He thought he had seen all the wonders the universe had to offer but none of them compared to the sight in front of him. She shifted a little under his steadfast, hungry gaze and he breathed, "You're beautiful."

"For a human, you mean?" she asked.

"For anyone," he answered. "All of time and space, Rose Tyler, and you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen."

He knelt down off the bed to undo her sandals and pressed a kiss into the arch of each foot. He slowly kissed his way up her body, lingering kisses, taking note of when the speed of her breathing increased and filing it away for future reference. When he reached her breasts, he fumbled behind her back for the clasp of her bra. He cursed his clumsiness. Any second now she was going to see that he had no idea what he was doing. She reached up easily and unhooked it and his breath caught again as it fell to the floor.

He reached out a hand to touch one of her newly revealed breasts, watching with interest as the peak hardened under his touch. He turned his attention to the other and it reacted in a similar fashion. Intrigued, he bent forward and caught one in his mouth. Rose jerked against his body in response as he swirled his tongue over it and suddenly he found himself on the bed with her straddling his legs again.

No longer wanting to be an inactive member of this team, Rose ran her hands over his torso, paying similar attention to him. He shuddered against her as she ran her fingernails over first the left pectoral and then the right. This body _definitely_ liked that. He hauled her up his body to ravish her mouth once again before breaking the kiss with a start.

"It's been a very long time since I've done this, Rose," he said, honestly. She seemed to ignore him for a second, lavishing her attention on a tender spot just behind his left ear that made him jerk up against her uncontrollably. She smiled into his neck and slid down his body until she was over his knees.

"How long is a very long time?" she asked.

"A few, ah," he was interrupted as her hand drifted down to the thin line of hair on his stomach, playing with his trousers buckle, "hundred years, give or take," he managed to answer.

"Seriously?" she asked, drawing back. He instantly missed her hot hands on him. She was blazing and he desperately wanted the heat back. He imagined how those hands would feel wrapped around him and, to his surprise, he felt himself grow even harder. He was straining against the fabric of his trousers uncomfortably now, begging to be released.

"Seriously," he responded. "And, oh, oh," he moaned, distracted again. Her hands returned to his body and were drawing down the zip of his trousers, brushing against him ever so slightly. "Never with a human," he gasped as she drew down both his trousers and his purchased-by-her briefs to free his erection. It stood proud and stiff and he watched her face as she studied him carefully and intently. He shifted a little nervously underneath her. He was fairly certain that his anatomy was similar to that of a human male's and, it was hard to tell without having any direct comparisons, but he was fairly certain his size was more than acceptable as well. "Everything ok?" he asked, a slight waver in his voice giving away his nerves.

She grinned up at him. "Oh, more than ok. Brilliant. Fantastic, even." He swelled with male pride at her words and a drop of fluid appeared at the tip to punctuate the feeling. She surprised him by suddenly ducking her head and using a nimble tongue to swipe it off, causing his hips to jerk forward uncontrollably at the feeling of her hot mouth on him. She grinned up at him again and slowly drug herself up his body to kiss him again, leaving her hot hand behind to stroke slowly up and down his length.

"Just expected you to be more different. You know, alien and all," she said. Just then he rippled under her fingers and she glanced down, surprised. "Ok. That was alien," she said. "What was that?" She repeated the action she had made with her fingers, using one hand to stroke up his length while the other gently massaged his testicles and he made a helpless noise as another ripple moved through him.

"It's..ah. What happens when I'm aroused. Used, oh, yes, to give pleasure. Rose!" he yelled as she did it again and he rippled more powerfully. "Rose, you've got to stop that or I'm not going to last," he said reluctantly. "First time in this body...bound to be sensitive."

"Mm...I like that. We'll have to explore that more later," she said impishly, letting her hands wander across his torso again. "Do we need protection?"

"Biologically incompatible. But...you mean we haven't done this before?" he asked, surprised that he could form any thoughts with what her talented little hands were doing. She froze on top of him and he instantly regretted it.

"No," she said, narrowing her eyes slightly at him. Before she could do something horrible like change her mind, he rolled her over so she was pinned beneath him, his erection pressing insistently on her thigh.

"I'm sorry. I just thought...Mickey said we were in love and you'd been with me for two years. I only lasted about .8 seconds after I figured out that I well, that I, I mean," he trailed off. Why couldn't he just say it? She softened beneath him and transferred her hands to his back, running them up and down his spine, causing him to shiver on top of her. So this him couldn't say it either. That was an annoying trait to carry through regenerations.

"We never talked about it and we certainly never did anything about it," she answered, with a faraway look in her eye. That wouldn't do. He didn't want her thinking about anyone else right now, even if it was him.

"Then I'm an idiot," he said, kissing her. "And I'd like to do something about it now," he continued a bit shyly. He pressed against her gently and was rewarded with a low moan, the most gorgeous sound he thought he'd ever heard. That is until she said "Oh, Doctor." Then he was done for.

He reached down and pulled her soaking knickers down her legs and discarded them. Fascinated again, he reached one finger up into her wet heat, moving it slowly and she bucked against his hand. "I've never done this with a human before, so you're going to have to tell me if I'm doing something wrong," he said. She nodded and threw her head back against the pillow as he added a second finger, stretching her tightness. He took the opportunity to attack her throat with his mouth, licking her pulse point while working his fingers back and forth. He wasn't sure what he was looking for but the sounds Rose was making were a pretty clear indication that he was doing all right anyway.

"Doctor," she growled and he instantly raised his head, afraid he'd done something wrong.

"Yes?" he asked, a little nervous for her answer, staring into her eyes which were now deep, black pools of desire. She was so hot and tight and wet. He needed her. Now.

Apparently, she agreed. "Need you. Now," she said, tugging at his hips. He complied and they both cried out as he entered her, sheathing himself inside completely. Rose held still for moment, adjusting to his size and waited for him to move. When he didn't, she turned her head to look at him, to question him and then he rippled again, this time inside her and she gasped and bucked forward. When her hips fell back to bed, she repeated the motion, hoping to encourage him.

He raised his head to look at her. "Rose, what? Ah!" he panted, as another ripple shot through his body. He felt her clench her inner muscles around him and he cried out at the unfamiliar sensation, instantly causing another ripple. He'd never felt that before and it was amazing.

"Nothing, it's just...are you going to move?" she panted back, nervous that she might offend him. They both gasped as another ripple shot through them.

"Oh. Do you want me to? Is that what you were doing?" he asked, astonished that they could talk like this in the middle of intercourse.

"Well, yeah. Humans we...uh, thrust," she said, desperately trying to find a different word. "But this is good, it's nice," she said.

"Nice?" he asked, incredulously. Nice wasn't going to do it. He wanted it to be perfect for her and he obviously wasn't doing what she needed no matter the sounds that she was making.

"Show me," he growled. She pushed her hips against his purposefully and his body seemed to explode with the sensation. He responded by thrusting back and suddenly there were so many things going on that his mind nearly gave out. Thrusting, rippling, clenching, teeth, hands, tongues...no wonder humans were such desired sex partners across the universe. He felt his rippling grow more frequent, almost constant, felt the tightness in his stomach and he hoped the Rose was close.

"Rose...I need you to...I'm close," he moaned to her.

She adjusted her legs so they were wrapped around his waist and suddenly he was thrusting even deeper into her. He felt her take his hand place it between them. She began to move his fingers back and forth and he blindly repeated the motion until her panting grew into breathy cries. He moved his fingers back and forth in rhythm with their motion until he suddenly felt her burst around him, screaming his name and clenching around him tightly. It was unfamiliar and beautiful and brilliant. That was enough to finish him and he exploded into her, yelling for her and emptying himself into her over and over again. As he'd told her, it was the first time for a release like this in this body (first one for several bodies, if he was honest) and so it took him like a hurricane, long and hard and Rose thought maybe he would never finish.

Finally he gave one last shudder and collapsed on top of her and they laid there, letting the aftershocks rip through their bodies together. After a few moments, conscious of his weight, he rolled off her and pressed against her side, holding her to him tightly.

"Wow," she said, turning to face him, her nose inches from his own. "That was incredible. Was it...um, ok for you?" she asked, blushing slightly.

"Ok? Rose...that was...I can't even describe it,'" he said, burying a kiss in her hair. He wondered if sex with humans was always that good. Nope, he decided. Must just be sex with Rose Tyler. No, he corrected himself. Making love with Rose Tyler. That's what was incredible.

"Wow, the Doctor out of words. Never thought I'd see the day," she said, laughing slightly. He responded by snogging her senseless. When she caught her breath, she looked up at him again with big eyes. "So what's it normally like?" she asked. "I mean, the thrusting doesn't happen, obviously."

He looked at her disbelievingly. She wanted a scientific discussion now? Maybe she really was his perfect woman.

"Well, Time Lords are technically asexual and sterile and rarely, if ever, engage in intercourse, especially not with each other. Sex is a base, physical act beneath the mighty Time Lords, so there's not really a 'normally'," he said. Rose snorted. "However, for reasons of scientific curiosity," Rose snorted again and he gave her a look of mock stern disapproval, "occasionally it will be engaged with a Gallifreyan (a non-Time Lord)," he explained.

"Female Gallifreyans are generally not such, ah, actively athletic participants," he said, carefully.

"What d'you mean? They jus' lay there?" Rose asked, wrinkling her nose. He leaned over and kissed it. "Doesn't sound like much fun."

He laughed and suddenly pinned her down again, dropping his voice to low and husky. "I'll have you know, Rose Tyler, that it is plenty of fun. Although, not nearly as much fun as your way," he admitted, letting her back up.

"Ok, so the women just lay there an' you do what?" she asked.

"We ripple like you felt until the release of semen," he said.

She frowned, lightly. "Doesn't that take a really long time?" she asked. "Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing feeling, better than anythin', but still..." she said.

"Well, yes. But that's the point, really," he said. "When Gallifrey was young, the males greatly outnumbered the females. While a female was engaged in intercourse with one male, she obviously couldn't be breeding with another male so it was a way of...keeping your woman to yourself, so to speak. There used to be a lot of aggression, including thrusting probably, branding, claiming...biting and such but that doesn't happen anymore. Not necessary. And, other than reproduction, the females don't get anything out of intercourse, so there really is no reason for them to actively seek it out."

"You mean they don't...?" Rose made a vague gesture with her hand.

"Orgasm?" he said, just to watch her face. "No, they don't."

"Seems like a pretty terrible system to me," Rose said.

"Yes. Not the most well-thought out evolutionary system," he responded. "That's partly why Time Lords replaced intercourse with science and genetic engineering. It made a lot more sense. Although, clearly they never experienced what I just did or they would have thrown that sense right out the window." Rose laughed and snuggled up to his side, fitting perfectly in the crook of his shoulder and throwing a leg over his.

"So if your women don't...finish, how'd you know I would?" she asked.

He gave her a superior look. "Just because I've not been with a human doesn't mean I don't know the basics. Brilliant, remember?" he said, pompously. She didn't need to know that he had read all of her girly magazines while she had been out shopping the other day. "Plus, I've been with people other than Gallifreyans," he said.

She frowned. "Like trees?" she asked. He looked at her with a puzzled expression. That was an odd thing to say.

"No...I've never had sex with a tree," he said, matter-of-factly. "And that is a sentence I never thought I would say," he laughed.

"Well, in 900 years I'm sure there are lots of things you never thought you'd do that you have," she teased. "Sex with a human, for one."

"Mmm...yes. And that was fantastic. In fact, I think I'll have to do that one again. With a specific human. And soon," he replied, nuzzling the side of her neck. "Wait, hang on, 900? I'm 1074."

She gaped at him and pulled away slightly. "Wha'? You, future you, told me you were 900!" she said, thumping him lightly on the chest.

"Well there you go. Lying about my age. Never thought I'd do that either," he said. She yawned enormously and he laughed then sighed and pulled her closer, marvelling again at her warmth.

"Will you stay here?" she asked, softly.

"How would I get out?" he responded, gesturing down to their entwined bodies. She smiled at him and tightened her leg over his, her eyelids growing heavy and drifting down. He kissed them both. "I'm actually going to get some sleep tonight. You seem to have worn me out," he said. She grinned impishly up at him even through the haze of her post-coital drowsiness.

"I'll be here when you wake up," he said softly. She closed her eyes and he felt her breathing slow as she fell asleep. He closed his own eyes and allowed himself to drift off as well, feeling whole and very happy.


	4. Eight IV

The Doctor slowly began to wake from his restful slumber dimly aware that he was feeling rather chilly. He smiled inwardly. There was a very simple solution to that. He made to burrow in deeper to the warm human beside him, stretching out a cold foot for a warm leg only to meet an empty duvet. He cracked an eye open and, sure enough, he was alone in an unfamiliar bed. For a brief moment he panicked...had he dreamed it all? It would simultaneously be the best and worst dream he'd ever had.

No, this was definitely her room and the sheets smelled of human, Time Lord and sex. He checked his internal time sense. To his surprise, it was almost seven in the morning, meaning that he had slept for practically five hours, an eternity for a Time Lord. Listening carefully, he heard soft clinking noises from the direction of the kitchen and he assumed Rose was already awake.

Perhaps she was regretting it and that's why she left him in bed alone. She'd felt guilty yesterday afternoon at merely almost kissing him. They hadn't really stopped to consider any consequences last night and he wasn't sure how Rose felt about the newest development in their apparently very complicated relationship.

He moved his hands to his head and contemplated his own feelings. It went against everything he was supposed to be, supposed to believe, supposed to do, all of it: taking a personal interest in lower species, messing around in his own Timeline, engaging in intercourse...falling in love. Time Lords did not do love. Love was a complex, messy thing, something he'd never really tried before and now he was in over his head. And he was quite in enjoying it.

Well, the Council could just shove off. He didn't need their approval and he certainly never paid any heed when they told him he couldn't or shouldn't do something before. In fact, that usually made him want to do it more. They were always telling him off or banishing him for something and they probably always would be. He had done all of those things and he wasn't about to start regretting it now. In fact, there were several of them that he rather fancied doing again, he thought, taking on Rose's familiar cheeky grin. Now he just had to convince Rose.

Still smiling, he stood to go find Rose in the kitchen. Glancing down at his unclothed state, he considered his options. He didn't really want to walk out into the kitchen starkers, especially considering 21st century human modesty, but putting back on the rumpled tuxedo didn't seem like a very good option.

He noticed that the bottoms of his pajamas were neatly laid across foot board of the bed. Obviously Rose had put them out for him. Interestingly, she had not brought the top, which had been folded up with the bottoms in his room.

He grinned again. Well, he did have a smashing physique this time 'round. His smile widened. Pleased that this body seemed to meet her satisfaction, he decided that maybe she wasn't regretting anything after all and threw his shoulders back to strut out to her.

Rose was standing over the stove making pancakes, dressed in a short, pink dressing gown and humming lightly to herself. For a moment, he merely stood in the doorway admiring her: the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot and the muscles that rippled with the action, the way her golden hair fell across her shoulders, the curve of bum, the lyric hum that reminded him distinctly of the TARDIS, so many things that he could stand here and catalogue her with his massive Time Lord brain for hours, filing away all the minute details that made her _Rose_. There was a place set out for him at the table with the tea kettle waiting beside it. He pulled out the chair and sat, with Rose turning to face him at the sound.

"Mornin' -Lords-Don't-Need-To-Sleep," she said, sticking her tongue between her teeth and grinning at him. She tried to keep the nerves out of her voice, unsure how he felt about last night. She had been torturing herself about it all morning, imagining his various reactions, which ranged from him being so disgusted that he left her stranded in this universe despite the consequences to him immediately and enthusiastically shagging her on the breakfast table.

"I'll have you know that sex, especially great sex, is an unusual and unaccustomed energy drain for a Time Lord, even without the mental connection," he responded, sniffing lightly and feigning offense.

"You sayin' I tired you out with all the 'great sex'?" Rose teased again. His answer hadn't really given anything away except that the sex had (to her relief) been apparently great for him and she wasn't fooled by his mock-offense.

"Yes, in fact I am. And I wouldn't mind letting you do it again. Preferably soon," he said, dropping his voice down and waiting with baited breath for her reaction. In response, he was rewarded with a cheeky grin and a fragrant flood of pheromones. No doubt how she was feeling, then.

"On that note, you wouldn't happen to have seen the top to my night clothes around, have you?" he asked, one eyebrow raised at her.

"Nope, can't say that I have. Guess you'll just have to go shirt-less all morning," she responded, the innocence in her voice directly conflicting with the way she purposefully raked her eyes over his exposed torso.

"Rose Tyler, are you leering at me?" he asked, attacking the stack of pancakes she sat down in front of him before she slid into her own chair.

"Might be, yeah," she said, winking at him. That was only fair, he supposed. He had been rather intently studying her lithe figure as well which, coincidentally, he had decided was clad solely in the tiny pink dressing gown.

"Oh! These are banana pancakes! How delightful!" the Doctor grinned, through a mouthful of pancakes.

"Used to make 'em for you all the time an' I sor' of figured you'd still like 'em. You told me once tha' only the small stuff changes with regenerations, tha' the big stuff stays," she said. Judging by the way he was scarfing down pancakes, apparently his immense love of bananas was big stuff.

Unable to resist the set-up, his eyes took on an almost predatory gleam and he let his voice drop to husky again. "That's right, Rose Tyler. The _big_stuff does stay," he said, looking at her pointedly. Rose blushed a deep scarlet and the room was once again filled with the beautiful scent of human arousal. He let the gleam fall from his eyes and leaned back satisfactorily. He could definitely get the hang of seducing Rose Tyler. He was brilliant, after all.

Rose considered him with amusement. The blatant flirting was not at all what she had expected from him but she wasn't about to start complaining. This Doctor didn't seem to have the inhibitions that both her Doctors displayed. He knew exactly what he wanted and pursued it with an assurance and audacity she had to admire.

The Time War must have shaken that assurance. Once he had given her a glimpse of his past after Utah, she had surmised that most of his reservation stemmed from the fact that after the Time War he had simply decided that he didn't deserve to be happy or that he would somehow destroy her as he had destroyed everyone else he knew. He had resigned himself to a life as "The Lonely God" and it was terrifying to him to think he could be more than that with someone.

At least, that's what she told herself during her nights of longing for him to do more than hold her hand and kiss her forehead.

They both finished their breakfast and sat sipping tea at the table, lost in thought momentarily. Rose snuck another glance at his bare chest and decided that she needed to change the subject or she was going to instigate that fantasy about the kitchen table. A picture of it flashed in her mind and, to her surprise, the Doctor jerked his head up to stare at her with wonder and dark heat filling his eyes. Had he just seen that?

The Doctor momentarily reeled from the rather vivid picture he had just received. How had she done that? And, more importantly, how could he get her to do it again? Or at least how could they go about that table bit?

Blushing again, Rose cleared her throat. "Maybe you should teach me some more about this whole psychic thing," she said.

He frowned and admonished, "Not psychic. Telepathic. Psychics are turban-wearing charlatans who convince gullible people they can read the future with tarot cards and crystal balls."

Rose gave him a long suffering look. "Fine. Telepathic thing. Anyway, you said I needed to put up my own shields and you wanted to figure out why I could hear you in the TARDIS," Rose answered. She was very curious about this new power and wondered how far it extended. So far she had only communicated with the Doctor and the TARDIS. Could she hear other people? She asked him as much.

"It depends. Some telepaths can hear everyone, some can only hear other telepaths. It varies by species and then even by individual," he said slowly. He really had no idea what her capabilities were.

"So what's normal for a human telepath then?" she asked.

He looked at her oddly. "That's the thing. I've never met a human telepath before, Rose. As far as I know, there aren't any. I don't mean to offend but human minds aren't built to handle it, especially this early in your species' development. I don't know how you're managing," he said, impressed.

And she was managing. Quite well, in fact. Once had shown her how to sort through the pieces of her mind, she had been doing it quite efficiently and she had been successfully maintaining the light shields they had erected two nights ago almost all the time. "When we were out on the street, did you hear anyone else?"

Rose looked up at the ceiling and bit her lip, thinking. "I don't think so. I could sor' of feel other people around like shadows or somethin' but I couldn't hear them."

"That's pretty normal. Like I told you before, I can see into other people's unprotected minds if I look but if I'm not trying they just remain in my periphery. Can you hear me now that we're not in the TARDIS?" he asked. Again, she shouldn't be able to but she was getting into a habit of proving him wrong.

Rose looked at him across the table, studying him thoughtfully. "I can't hear you but I can feel you there. I can tell that you're happy and I dunno...interested." He stiffened a little. Rose didn't seem to notice and continued. "'s like I can feel that you're curious and now that you're uncomfortable or somethin'. Sorry," she said, apologetically. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

"How can you tell that?" he asked, incredulous. How could she possibly tell what he was feeling?

"The color of your presence changes. When you're happy, it's a bright blue color an' it shifted when you got uncomfortable. I dunno," Rose said. She wasn't sure how she was translating the colors into feelings, she just seemed to know.

A bit unnerved, he decided it was time to take another route. Plus, if they connected again he might be able to look at the locked part of her mind and get some answers. "I'll teach you how to put up some of your own shields. It will probably take a little while though, and this isn't the most comfortable position. Could we retire to the couch or back to your bedroom?" he asked.

"Tryin' to get me back in bed, Doctor?" Rose asked him impishly.

It was his turn to blush a bit. "Might be, yeah," he said, stealing her words from earlier.

She laughed. "That's fine. I need to put some different clothes on anyway. Not exactly dressed for sitting cross-legged," she said, gesturing down to her dressing gown. So he had been right...there wasn't anything on underneath that scrap of fabric. His breathing quickened a bit.

He settled on the bed with his back to the headboard and pouted at her as she pulled on her jimjams bottoms under the robe. She did not, however, pull on the top. "So we're even," she said, tightening the belt on her gown and joining him on the bed, knees touching, hands held.

"Remember how I told you to picture your mind as if it were room?" Rose nodded. "Good. Now imagine that it has a big, solid locked door."

She closed her eyes in rapt concentration and did as he asked. She thought of the heavy, ornate wooden door that had protected them from the werewolf in Scotland. "Got the door up? Good. Ok. Now, I'm going to try to get in. I won't be too aggressive or anything the first time. I don't want to hurt you. But later on, others might and you should be prepared."

He threw his mind against hers and batted the shield away in a matter of seconds. "You can do better than that, Rose." He felt her determination flare and the shield went up again. They stayed like that for the next 45 minutes, locked in a battle of minds and wills and Rose's shields got continually stronger. She was no match for him really, but, after all, he had Academy training and 1074 years of practice under his belt.

Finally, after she had held him off for about five minutes and he was distractedly trying to find a different approach, she surprised him by lashing back out at his shields. He was caught so off-guard that she was in his mind before he could react. He heard her gasp and her hands in his tightened.

She didn't break the contact and he didn't push her out. Instead, she dropped her own shields and willingly invited him in. He quickly accepted and didn't try to hide the deep feeling of pleasure that flared through his mind and body and the moan that escaped his lips. Being connected with her felt so good, so right.

Rose gaped around her, albeit mentally. He hadn't been lying when he talked about his massive Time Lord brain. Where hers was a single room with several doors leading out to her memories, emotions and identity, his was a massive cavern, maze-like in complexity but very neatly organized. She felt suddenly very small and inadequate. He was so much bigger, so much smarter and so much more important than her. How could she ever be enough for him? To her surprise, she felt him reach out and brush the feelings aside, replacing them with his own feelings of pride and affection for her. She could feel him all around her, surrounding her like a lover's embrace.

_"Lesson Number Three, Rose Tyler," _he thought to her. He felt her surprise and amusement at hearing him speak in her mind. _"Telepathic communication. Right now, because I'm in your head and you're in mine, we're sharing our thoughts and emotions. I can hear a sort of running commentary of your mind, but if you want to say something to me directly, all you have to do is think it at me." _

Rose picked the simplest thing she could and pushed a tentative _"Hello"_ at him. She felt his wave of amusement.

_"Yes, hello,"_ he said and she got the feeling he was smiling at her even though her eyes were closed.

_"Is this what it's like whenever you talk mentally with another telepath?"_ Rose asked him. To her surprise, the color of his mind shifted a bit and she got the impression he was blushing.

_"No, not exactly,"_ he answered. _"We're not fully connected because I can't see your memories and we're not currently, ah, physically engaged but what we're doing right now, actually being inside each other's minds, is, ah, extremely intimate." _In fact, if she were to open her eyes she would see the evidence of exactly how intimate it was. His body was reacting to both her physical and mental proximity with great enthusiasm.

_"So what you're sayin' is that this is sor' of like the telepathic equivalent of third base?"_ Rose asked, cocking a figurative and literal eyebrow at him. Through her amusement and skepticism, he could see the lust building up in her mind, fueling his own and could faintly smell her arousal.

He coughed lightly. _"Normal telepathic conversation is done with shields fully up and there is nothing sexual about it. Rather like the difference between the way your physician touches you during an exam and the way a lover would."_

_"So like the difference between 'turn your head and cough' an' this?"_ Rose said innocently, disentangling her fingers and reaching out to stroke her hand up his thigh and over his prominent erection through the thin fabric of his bottoms. He made a sound of deep appreciation and Rose felt his pleasure thrum through her own body as well. He reached up with his newly free hand to trap her there, pressing down lightly and they both groaned with pleasure again.

_"The mental connection, the sharing of physical and emotional sensations, was a key part of intercourse for Time Lords - well, for Gallifreyans anyway," _" he said. He felt a wave of doubt wash through Rose.

_"Does that mean last night wasn't good for you?"_ she asked tentatively. He rushed to correct her.

_"Of course it was! It was incredible. I didn't even know that this part would be possible with you and I don't think we were ready for it anyway. It's not meant for a quick shag,"_ he responded. He instantly regretted his poor choice of words as he felt her anger and hurt rear up.

_"No, no! That's not what I meant. It's not just, you're not just, I mean, we're...it's, ah,"_ he sighed, frustrated and instead of using more ineffectual words, he settled for showing her his feelings and memories of the night before. Once her surprise at the exchange wore off, it seemed to assuage her worries. _"What I meant was, the mental connection is part of a much deeper bonding process. It's not done anymore and I only know about it because we study it in our history lessons."_

_"Hang on. You were in my head the first night that you stayed here,"_ Rose said, sounding annoyed, removing her trapped hand from his leg. He fumbled for the retreating hand and gripped her other tightly. If she stopped touching him, they would be thrown out of each other's minds rather unpleasantly and he wasn't willing to break the connection yet.

He blushed a bit again. _"Ah, yes. Well, we weren't all that connected then because your mind was so chaotic and I was doing my best to stay out but that may have helped the, ah, physical attraction along," _he stuttered, trying not to look too guilty and avoiding her now open eyes.

_"Are you angry with me? There really was no other way to help you organize things and I didn't intend, that is to say, I didn't think that we would be so, ah...well, conducive,"_ he trailed off. She could feel his apprehension and his fear of rejection swirl around her.

She sighed and replaced her hand on his knee, which he immediately twined with his fingers again, his relief and happiness washing over her. _"No, it's ok. I can see that you were tryin' to help me. An' I don't think you're that skeevy, gettin' in my head jus' so you could shag me. Especially because just a few days ago, you weren't too big on the whole shagging idea." _She gave him another look and he ducked his head sheepishly. _"So, we have to be touching, then?" _she asked, changing the subject and having felt the way he desperately grabbed for her hand when she removed it.

_"Yes. In fact," _he said, his mental voice taking on the deep, husky quality he had been using earlier in the kitchen and leaning over her so she was forced back onto the bed, moving their entwined hands above her head, _"the more contact, the better the connection. Especially skin-to-skin contact."_ He lowered his head and caught her lips, offering a slow, languid kiss and letting them revel in the increased mental connection. She was right. He hadn't been too big on the whole shagging thing. But he also hadn't know what he'd been missing, all those years of not knowing Rose Tyler.

He shook loose a hand and snaked it between them to pull the belt on her robe, pushing it open and sighing as her bare chest came in contact with his own. Her hands above her head pressed her breasts into him and she made a happy sighing sound.

She suddenly responded to his kiss by pushing back against him, forcing herself up into a sitting position and his back against the headboard, climbing onto his lap as he stretched his legs out. Their languid kiss slowly began to increase in intensity, fueled by the passion radiating across their mental connection. His hands left hers and rose up to caress her sides, up to her chest and back down again. Everywhere Rose touched him left a blazing trail of heat that she could feel herself and his cool fingertips left shivering paths he felt in return.

He was so lost in the sensations of her that he didn't hear the ringing of her mobile until Rose unthinkingly rolled off him to answer it. They both gasped at the distinctly unpleasant feeling of being doused with cold water as their intense mental connection was severed and Rose inelegantly tumbled off the bed, mobile in hand.

Shaking his head to recover, the Doctor scrambled to the edge to make sure Rose was all right. She looked a bit dazed but unhurt and her discarded mobile was squawking her mother's voice. That would be the third time Jackie Tyler had interrupted them in the middle of something he would rather not have been interrupted and he was beginning to distinctly dislike that woman's sense of timing. Even if she did think he was dishy.

He watched, amused despite himself, as Rose shook her head as well and then picked up the errant phone. "Yes, Mum. Sorry 'bout that. Took a bit of a tumble." He let loose the laugh that had been threatening to explode since he realized that she wasn't hurt and she scowled up at him, only redoubling his mirth.

Then he did a double-take. He hadn't just seen her reproach...he had _felt_ it. What was that about, then? She was way down there on the floor and he was up here. He took a closer look at the remains of their mental connection and was surprised to see a thin bond connecting them together. It was faint and seemed to twist and tangle in the confusing mess of their Timelines, which he could see more clearly now, hers emerging as he saw it knot with his. To his surprise, he saw them as colored now, his Timeline a shining blue and hers a gold tinged with pink.

"No, no, Mum. It's just the telly," she said, standing back up and sticking her tongue out at him before re-tying her robe. He pouted a bit as she covered herself but she merely turned her back to him and began to walk toward the door. He listened as her footsteps and voice retreated down the hall toward the kitchen.

As he waited for her to return, he examined the tentative bond that had sprung up during their all-too brief but intense session a few moments ago. He found that he could just barely hear the buzz of Rose's mind several rooms away, much like he could when the TARDIS was far away from him, small and faint but there nonetheless. Maybe this was similar to what she could do with him. He closed his eyes and focused solely on her mind, willing everything else away. He could hear her coming closer and, when he opened his eyes again, he saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him carefully.

"That was Mum," she said unnecessarily. "She wanted to know when I'm going to get there today." He groaned lightly, pulling her down onto his chest. He knew it was selfish to want her to stay with him when she needed to spend some time with the family she was leaving but he also didn't want to let her out of his sight. My, he was getting possessive. She sighed and pressed a light kiss to his chest before settling in the crook of his shoulder.

"I've got to leave soon. We're going to take Tony to the zoo," she murmured, pressing kisses along the skin convenient to her.

"How much time is there until 'soon'?" he asked, turning slightly, pressing against her and nudging her mind gently, trying to remind her of where they had left off.

"Not enough," she groaned, responding by running her hands up and down his torso, reminding him of the night before and feeling his need ratchet up.

"Mixed signals, Rose," he growled at her, rolling over and pulling her on top of him. Time Lords weren't biologically geared for "quick" but then they hadn't met the likes of Rose Tyler.

"Mmm," she replied and then her face lit up and shifted into a wicked expression that was simultaneously so frightening and so erotic that his mind didn't know what to do with it. It decided to go with immensely turned on. She lowered her mouth to his and slowly began to kiss him as she shifted on top of him, making him moan in her mouth, and began running her hands across his stomach, the dip of his hip bones, skimming the tops of his trousers.

He groaned as she brushed against him lightly, almost accidentally, and he purposefully rose to meet her hand and again pressed his mind against hers, a little more insistently than before. She frustratingly ignored both and began to allow her mouth to wander down his torso, following the recent path of her hands.

When she reached his navel, which garnered a raised eyebrow from her, he thought that she was going to comment and did she really want to go into another biology lesson NOW, but then she flashed him that smile again and swirled her tongue around it in a deliberate motion he didn't quite follow but desperately wanted again.

To his surprise, he felt himself ripple and she hadn't even touched him yet. He knew she had felt it when her mouth smiled against him and she stopped moving that clever tongue long enough to say, "Told you I wanted to explore that more later." Without being in her mind he wasn't sure exactly what was happening, what she was doing, but it was brilliant and he was fairly certain that he never wanted her to stop. Having her not touch him was almost as stimulating as having her touch him.

Her tongue began to work its way lower as her hands tugged down his trousers and his hazy, arousal-fogged mind brought forth something he had read in one of those magazines. At the time, he had read the article on technique with a sort of detached interest, an interesting, if a bit strange, act between humans and he wasn't human but she was, oh...she was. Her and her extraordinary hands and teeth and tongue. All human. Blazing hot, wonderful human. No, having her touch him was better. Infinitely better. She must have read that article, too.

He cried out as her tongue ran up the length of him again, swirling around the top as she had done in his navel moments before, hands working in tandem and he rippled powerfully. She grinned up at him and for a moment he thought there couldn't be anything more beautiful than this, right now. She bent her head back and as she took him fully into her mouth, she dropped the shields around her mind and let him enter both places at once and he thought he might simply die with the pleasure of it all.

He felt her observing his reactions, redoubling the efforts that flared the most satisfaction in the colors of his mind and he could feel his own pleasure through her mind, could feel what it was like to have him rippling in her mouth, her cheeks hollowing, her tongue stroking. He was cool and she was hot and they were, oh, Rassilon they were.

He was so close and it had never been like this, never been this fast before and all he wanted is release and yet all he wanted is to never let this feeling end. But he was going to...and she couldn't possibly want...as he surged toward completion, suddenly Rose felt his uncertainty wash through her.

_"Rose, I'm going to, ah,"_ he tried to warn her and the thought dissolved as another wave of pleasure crashed through them. She sent him a tide of reassurance and hummed around his stiff, slick member. The Doctor cried out her name again at the new sensation and then he was pulsing in her mouth, writhing underneath her and the feeling was so vivid, Rose actually felt herself go with him, eventually releasing him physically and mentally when they were finished. She collapsed against him, her head resting on his trembling hip, before sitting up and swinging her legs off the bed.

She yelped in surprise as the Time Lord grabbed her around the waist and pulled her forcefully back down, pinning her in place with his leg. "And where do you think you're going?" he rumbled in her ear.

"Got to get ready to go. No time, remember?" Rose said, trying to ignore the way he was nibbling on her ear, allowing his tongue to wander around the delicate shell and darting in, making her gasp.

"Time Lord, remember?" he muttered against her ear, letting is tongue roam down along her collarbone and wishing suddenly that his taste buds were better in this incarnation. Oh well. Maybe next time.

"Won't help right now, remember?" she reminded him, pushing him gently on the chest.

Oh, right. He thought suddenly of his dear ship and the situation that had landed them here in the first place. Ironic...a Time Lord without enough Time. He could think of a number of hours in his life that he would quite willingly trade right now for another one with Rose. Or two. Or six. He had a number of things to show her about Time Lord stamina.

"But I didn't get to participate much this time," he pouted up at her, using all the charm he could muster with this handsome face and blue eyes. Brown were a bit better for cajoling but he usually got what he wanted anyway.

"I think you participated plenty," she replied saucily, sticking her tongue between her teeth, reminding him where it had been so recently, mouth curling up in that flirtatious smile that made it absolutely impossible for him not to snog her. He could taste himself on her lips and it made him want her even more. "I'll let you make it up to me tonight," she said when he finally allowed her to pull away. Breathless and flustered was a look he quite liked on her. Especially because of him.

Still rather unwillingly, he let her get up and move around the room, collecting her clothes for the day. He merely sat on the bed watching her. Rose suddenly looked up at him from her dresser and laughed. He looked so comical, sitting there completely naked and completely unconcerned as though he simply belonged there, sitting on her bed. She liked that thought. He smiled at her warmly and she ducked her head in a blush again. Had he heard her again?

"Changed your mind yet?" he asked, cheekily. He liked the thought of belonging here too.

"No_p_e," she said, although really she had, several times. "Now, shoo. You're distracting me."

"That was my intention," he said and again Rose marvelled at his audacity. He laughed and stood up to pull his bottoms back on and to collect the pieces of his rumpled tuxedo. As he exited her room to go back to the TARDIS, he kissed her lightly on the lips with just a tantalizing hint of tongue, almost making her change her mind instantly.

Back on the ship he changed into one of her chosen outfits again because he knew it would please her: dark gray dress pants, a light blue shirt and a swirly tie and imagined all the things he could do to in six hours with Rose.

They met in the living room a few moments later. Rose smiled and adjusted his necktie. She had bought it because it reminded her strongly of her favorite tie her Doctor wore. He hummed in pleasure as she shyly let her fingers ghost over his neck and jawline. How could she be feeling shy now after she'd just...he leaned down to kiss her. He hoped she'd never feel shy with him again.

"Walk me to my car?" Rose asked and he marvelled at the fact that she seemed to think he might decline.

Arm in arm once more, they walked through the street and around the block to where Rose had parked her car after their first disastrous dinner together.

"There's a man across the street pointing a camera at us," the Doctor said, leaning down to whisper to Rose, letting his lips linger on her ear simply because he could.

"Tabloids. Let's give him a show, yeah?" Rose said with that wicked grin once more and, before he could process her words, he found himself pinned up against the wall being snogged senseless by a very enthusiastic Rose Tyler. She eventually pulled back from him looking smug and she whispered "Did it work?"

It had certainly worked on him. Rassilon. Once awoken, this libido of his was very zealous. He pretended to look over her shoulder at the camera man, not really caring what the other man was doing, preferring instead to focus on the delightful human attached to his waist. "Mmm...not sure. Better do that again, just in case." He caught her mouth quickly with his, stifling the giggle that had started to escape and transforming it into a groan.

She reluctantly pulled away from him but his hands stayed locked on her hips, unwilling to let her go. "Ok, ok. We've got to stop. Mum will kill me if there's a picture of me shagging a stranger in an alley in tomorrow's tabloid."

"I'm not a stranger," he growled slightly. His mind knew that shagging Rose in a public alley was not a good idea but his body did not want to agree. Time Lord, indeed. What did this girl do to him?

To his surprise, Rose snorted and laughed, effectively ruining the mood. "What?" he complained.

"This you's a stranger to her. An' if she knew who you really were it would make it WAY worse," she said, laughing and remembering her mother slapping her first Doctor at just the chance he had ulterior motives. His face! Thoughts of her mother suddenly sobered her and she stepped back from him. He sensed the shift and let his hands drop to his sides, feeling bereft without her to hold.

She was leaving. Tomorrow. As of tomorrow, she would never see her mum again. Or Pete or Mickey or Tony. She'd always hoped that she would get out of this universe but now faced with the reality, it was terrifying. She also knew without a doubt that even if she had a choice, in the end she would choose the Doctor. She would always choose the Doctor. Mickey had figured that out far before she had. But she still had to prepare to say goodbye to them, permanently.

The Doctor watched as Rose struggled with some deep, internal thoughts. It wasn't hard to figure out what she was thinking and he could feel her inner turmoil through their tentative link. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you now?" he asked.

They had decided that Rose would go spend the day with her family and that he would come by that evening for dinner so together they could tell everyone she was leaving. Rose had seemed very surprised that he offered to talk to her family with her but it seemed only fair. They deserved to confront the man who was taking their daughter from them, this man who loved her now and, he was sure, would love her later.

"Yes. Thanks for offerin' but...I think I need this time alone with them," she said, hoping he would understand.

He nodded. The lucky git who was future him had the rest of her life to spend with her after tomorrow but these people would only have today.

He opened her car door for her and bent to brush his lips against hers gently as she slid into the seat. "I'll see you later tonight, then. Call me on the TARDIS phone if you need me sooner," he said, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and then straightening up so she could close the door.

Standing on the pavement, he offered her a small flip of his hand as she drove off to her parents' home. He had some work to do in the TARDIS to make sure that she'd be ready to leave tomorrow and he'd have to contact Romana to help them back through. That would be enough to distract him until this evening when he would have to face the Tylers. And Mickey Smith, he had no doubt.


	5. Eight V

The Doctor arrived at the Tyler residence that evening in a taxi, one of the least interesting forms of transportation he'd ever been in. The seat was strangely sticky, the windows were smudged and the driver did not appreciate his enthusiastic attempts at conversation in the slightest. He finally gave up trying to talk to the sullen man and focused his thoughts on what tonight might hold.

It was entirely possible that Rose's parents would be as angry with him (well, future him and so him by extension) as Mickey Smith had been, perhaps even more so. Rose had mentioned that her mother hadn't been all that fond of him. He must be significantly less charming in the future. Of course, he considered how he would feel if someone came along and swept Rose away from him right now and then very quickly stopped considering it. Nope, he didn't like that train of thought at all.

Should he tell them that he is a past version of the Doctor they knew? He supposed he didn't really have a choice in that matter. Since Rose knew about regeneration he could only assume they knew too. They were clever people and they would notice that he hadn't recognized them earlier.

Should he tell them that he'd slept with Rose? No, that was probably a terrible idea. Might even get him slapped. Of course, from Rose's mother's comments it sounded like they thought future him had been doing that all along, anyway. And apparently he hadn't been. Future him must also have a significant amount of self control or be remarkably stupid.

Should he tell them how he was feeling about her? How he was certain he would feel about her? Would they want to hear that? Would Rose want to hear that?

Humans. Complicated little creatures.

He handed an unfamiliar stack of money over to the cab driver and squared his shoulders to ring the doorbell. Glancing around the drive, he didn't see Rose's car and he wondered if perhaps they weren't back yet. Maybe he should just wait in the garden...

"Oh! Hello there," Pete answered the door, eyeing the Doctor and looking him over with an expression that only a parent, only a father, could use on a potential suitor for his daughter. The Doctor smiled inwardly at the thought. He'd never experienced a look like that before. Rose was introducing him to all sorts of interesting things.

"I'm afraid the girls and Tony aren't back from the zoo yet. Come in and have a seat. Would you like a drink?" Pete asked, not really waiting for an answer and turning to fix a scotch for both of them.

"Thanks, very much," the Doctor responded politely, taking the drink from him and settling on the couch. Pete sat across from him in an armchair and leveled another piercing look at him. Under Pete's steadfast gaze, the Doctor felt like a schoolboy despite having over ten centuries on the other man. All he was missing was the shotgun across his knees, but the message couldn't be more clear.

"John, was it?" Pete asked. "Medical student?"

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't sure what Rose wanted him to say and he didn't know how much this alternate version of her father knew about him. "Doctor, actually," he said vaguely.

"Of what exactly?" Pete inquired. He was making an effort at casual conversation but it was obvious he was also fishing for information. The Doctor's respect for him grew. Pete Tyler hadn't gotten this far in the business world without being shrewd. Good for him.

Now how to answer that question...he had a number of degrees from all over the universe, some in fields that a 21st century human wouldn't grasp. "A number of things. I'm quite clever," he responded, deciding that he would continue on his vague path of not-quite-lies.

Pete stiffened and narrowed his eyes at the now insolent-sounding suitor. Perhaps that hadn't been a good answer. He obviously wanted to know that the Doctor would be able to take care of Rose, that this unfamiliar man in front of him deserved his bright, vivacious daughter. Did he? The Doctor fervently hoped so.

"Rose is special," Pete told him steadily, polite tact leaving his voice at the Doctor's flip response.

"I know," the Doctor responded and something in his voice, something that he hadn't put there intentionally or perhaps he had, he wasn't sure, made Pete relax and drop his tight shoulders.

"She...she's been through a lot," Pete said, his voice breaking a little. "I don't know how much she's told you and it's not my place to say but she's had a rough time lately."

The Doctor nodded, unable to respond and unsure that he was supposed to.

"She gave me a second chance at a life I never thought I could have and I owe her so much. Rose deserves the world." Pete looked at him meaningfully, now obviously waiting for a response.

"I'll give it to her," the Doctor responded with a certainty he couldn't quite understand. "In fact, I'll give her the whole universe." _All of time and space_, he added in his mind.

"Just don't break her heart," Pete said simply, standing to collect the scotch glasses and leaving the Doctor to sit alone in the drawing room, contemplating the complexities of human love and resilience. Here was a man who had lost his wife only to find her and love her again, even if it was a different version of the same woman. Maybe that's where Rose inherited her ability to care for him through his regenerations. Remarkable family they have here.

He heard the door open and soon the house was filled with the sounds of arrival: the patter of small feet as an excited toddler ran through the foyer, coats being shed and greetings exchanged. Soon they all gathered in the drawing room and Rose smiled at him, her cheeks still delightfully pink from the chill outside. With Jackie distracted by attempting to disrobe the errant toddler, the Doctor sidled over to Rose and took her hand in his own.

"How was the zoo?" he asked, enjoying the way Rose leaned into his arm and the way she smiled up at him like she had missed him. He had missed her, too.

"Brilliant! Tony couldn't get enough of the monkeys. I think we stood there for two hours!" she laughed.

The boy in question suddenly stopped his top-speed circuit of the room to latch onto a surprised Doctor's leg. He quickly disentangled it and bent down to look the little boy in the eye.

"Do you know what monkeys eat?" he asked the little boy kindly, not seeing Rose's incredulous expression.

" 'nanas," responded the boy after a moment of deep thought.

"That's right! Very good! And you should eat them too. They're good for little apes," he said, grinning as the boy tore off again, this time pretending to be a monkey. A harried Jackie Tyler gave him a strange look as she sped off after the small human.

Rose gaped at him as he affectionately watched the boy leave the room. Neither of her Doctors had ever showed the slightest interest in children. In fact, although he occasionally acted like one, the pinstriped version of him always scuttled away from children so quickly that she had once accused him of being frightened of them. He had indignantly responded that children were germy little hellions who somehow always managed to have sticky fingers which, she responded, was ironic coming from a man who licked walls and stuck his hands in strangers' marmalade jars.

Smiling at him gently, Rose led him into the dining room where the table had already been set for dinner. They slid into side-by-side seats and were soon joined by Jackie, Pete and Tony. He had hoped they would have a little time alone to collect themselves and figure out what to say but dinner was very quickly underway.

It passed by in a flash, only interrupted when Mickey Smith appeared for dessert and the conversation stayed light, flitting between Pete's business ventures and the day at the zoo. Once the plates had been cleared away and Tony had been put to bed, the small group retired to the living room and only then did an uncomfortable silence fall over them.

Rose drew in a deep breath and looked across the room at Jackie. "Mum, I've got something to tell you," she said quietly. The Doctor reached over and entwined his fingers with hers.

"_We've_ got something to tell you," he said, firmly. Rose looked up at him briefly and he smiled at the love and wonder he saw shining there.

"This is the Doctor," she said, watching Jackie's face carefully. Rose was expecting her to yell or cry or rage but instead all she saw a calm look of acceptance tinged with sadness, as if Rose had merely confirmed something she already knew.

"Oh, sweethear'. I know," Jackie said softly. Mickey nodded and even Pete simply smiled sadly.

"What? How could you know?" Rose asked, incredulously. Even the Doctor looked surprised. So Pete had known who he was during the whole "threatening father" act.

"I know you, Rose. An' ever since that man walked into our lives you've only ever looked at one person the way you look at 'im," Jackie said, the sad light never leaving her eyes. "Plus there was the way he drug you from the party las' night for simply lookin' at the Nelson boy. How many times did I watch himself in the leather do exactly tha'? An' he called my son an ape," she added darkly.

She turned to look at the Doctor and raised her chin, steel back in her eyes and he was reminded of his first formidable impression of her. "And you. Thought you said this was impossible?"

She stared at him hard but didn't give him a chance to answer. "But I know you. Impossible's never stopped you before. An' believe you me, that's the only thing that's keepin' me from slappin' you right now. 'Cause I know it must have been hard for you to get here. Is tha' why you changed again?"

He looked over at Rose who nodded her head slightly. Taking a breath, he said "I'm from the past actually. I have yet to met your daughter or any of you back in our universe."

At that, all three mouths across the room fell open. "You mean you just met her?" Mickey asked.

"Yes, I did. Two days ago by the London Eye. She crashed into me while she was looking for my TARDIS," he said affectionately, squeezing Rose's hand and exchanging a small, knowing smile with her.

Jackie observed all of this silently, watching the way they looked at each other and the way their hands seemed so natural entwined together like that. It was all very familiar to her. She had watched it happen twice already.

"Two days?" Mickey asked, transferring his gaze back to Rose. "You went and fell for him again in two days?" Rose ducked her head and blushed. She started to pull her hand from his but the Doctor tightened his grip. He wasn't about to let her go. Now or ever.

"I'm still me, Mickey. Same man, new face. Or...old face, I suppose," the Doctor said. Mickey stared at him, echoes of the crazy, lanky one's words resounding in his memory. "Is it so hard to believe that my feelings and hers would carry over? I'm simply a different version of the same man," he said, pointedly transferring his gaze from Mickey to Jackie and Pete.

Pete mirrored his pose, reaching out and clasping hands with his blonde Tyler. They both understood what the Doctor was saying. "And what are those feelings?" asked Pete, again taking the role of a concerned father, a role he never thought he would get to play.

"I told you I would give her the universe," the Doctor said seriously. He turned to look Rose in the eye. "And I will." The smile she gave him in return lit up his hearts and bolstered his courage.

He turned back to her parents. "And that starts by taking her back to her original universe. I can take her back to me, future me, and that will set the Timelines in this universe straight. Her presence is disrupting the flow of Time. She doesn't belong here," he added gently.

Jackie looked up at him with tear filled eyes and spoke for the first time since her original statement. "I know," she said softly, nodding. "She belongs with you, Doctor."

Rose gaped at her. She couldn't believe how her mother was taking all of this. "You haven't ever belonged here, Rose," Jackie said, transferring her gaze to her dear girl. "Honestly, you haven't even belonged to me since the day you ran off into tha' great blue box of his. It just took me awhile to see it. An' I know you belong with 'im, whether it's the grumpy daft one, the cheeky rude one or Mr. Shakespeare here."

"Thank you, Mum," Rose whispered, letting the tears fall down her cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," she said, surprising everyone. "You were always meant for big things, Rose. Bigger'n the Powell Estate, anyway. An' if you hadn't run off with tha' great alien lump, I wouldn't have gotten a second chance at my happily ever after. Now it's your turn." She steeled herself and turned her eyes back to the Doctor.

"When are you leavin', then?" she asked brusquely.

"Tomorrow," he said, watching as all three of them sucked in surprised, deep breaths in unison.

"Shoulda known tha'," Jackie said, wryly. "Never were one for stickin' around for domestics, you. I suppose there's some plasma storm callin' you back?" she said sarcastically. The Doctor frowned a bit but Rose simply squeezed his hand and he let it drop.

"Hang on," Mickey said. "If Rose is messing up Time or whatever because she's in the wrong universe, what about me? What about Jackie?"

He saw fear flit across both Jackie and Pete's faces and Pete tightened his grip on his wife's hand. She had been taken away from him once. He wasn't about to let it happen again. The Doctor understood that feeling.

"As far as I can tell your Timelines have simply replaced those of your alternate selves. Overlaid on top of them, it seems. But since Rose never existed in this universe, hers has nowhere to go and it's disrupting all the Timelines around her. Including yours," he said. Jackie and Pete relaxed and even Mickey seemed reassured that they wouldn't have to leave.

"So, you're an earlier Doctor, then? Is that why you could come here and the other bloke can't?" Pete asked.

"Yes," he replied. "Whatever it is that is keeping my future self from crossing dimensions hasn't happened to me yet."

Mickey started to open his mouth but Rose shook her head at him furiously. The Doctor watched sadly. It was hard to be in a room full of people who already knew your future.

"Otherwise, I'm certain I would have been here in an instant to collect Rose," he said firmly to her, a penance for his hurtful words on their first day together, trying to convey to her his sincerity. She laid her head down on his shoulder, apparently accepting his apology.

"So this is goodbye, then," Pete said, more a statement than a question.

"I...yes," Rose answered, looking sadly at her mother. "I've been tryin' to get back the whole time I've been here. But I'm goin' to miss you." Rose stood up and walked over to where Jackie was sitting. Pete let go of her hand and the two embraced with the Doctor, Mickey and Pete shifting a bit uncomfortably. When they broke apart, both were teary-eyed.

It was Mickey who broke the silence. "Remember when you were eleven and you decided it would be a brilliant idea to ride your bike down the slide at the playground? I found you, bleedin' on the rocks and I thought your mum was going to kill me when we got back to your flat." He laughed and after a moment Rose joined him.

Jackie laughed. "She was all righ' but that bike never did see the light of another day. Good thing you got tha' red one the next year. Never did figure out where tha' came from." Rose smiled secretly at him and squeezed his hand and he wondered why.

"What about when you let me cut your hair with my Barbie scissors?" Rose asked, giggling at Mickey through the remnants of her tears. Jackie joined in on the laughter too.

"Shaved right next 'is head on one side an' cut all jagged on the other!" she exclaimed. "Took me nearly an hour t'make 'im look like a normal human again."

Pete and the Doctor laughed along until late into the evening, getting a glimpse into the lives these three shared before either of them came along. Finally the laughter started to die down and four tired humans and a Time Lord were looking to call it a night.

"Sweethear', why don't you just stay here? We can all have breakfast in the morning together before 'e whisks you away in the blue box of 'is," Jackie proposed easily but they could all see how much she wanted Rose to say yes.

Rose looked over at him out of the corner of her eye but before he could respond, Jackie rolled her eyes and said, "Yes, his Highness over there can stay too. An' you, Mickey. Use your old room. No arguments. Rose, you know where the spare bedrooms are." With that, Jackie stood up, taking Pete's hand and dragging him up the stairs. He looked over his shoulder and gave a slight wave to the young people in the living room.

"Righ' then. I'll just be off, too," Mickey said, following the Tylers up the staircase. He had stayed with Jackie and Pete for a time before he got on his feet found a flat of his own here.

"Sorry this isn't exactly what we planned," Rose said when they were once again alone in the living room. She stared down at the floor and worried the carpet with a stockinged foot.

"Well, I think it was brilliant," he said, lifting her chin gently with his hand and grinning wickedly at her. "Where else would I have learned that you ran through the estate naked on your seventh birthday? Or that you went through a Spice Girls phase when you were ten? Too bad your mum doesn't have any of those pictures in this universe."

She hit him playfully and dragged him up the stairs, stopping shyly in front of a door. "This is, er, my room," she said, looking at him meaningfully although he didn't quite follow her.

"Oh, is it?" he responded, politely, sticking his head in the door when she opened it. "It's nice. Very...pink."

Rose was shifting from foot to foot and he could feel that she was nervous or apprehensive about something through the tentative link in their minds. "I know you probably don't need to sleep tonight since you slept yesterday but I thought maybe..." she trailed off and looked at him again.

Oh.

"Well, ah, Rose...I don't think it would be very proper for us to...this being your parents' home and all," he stammered. Confessing to Rose's parents that he cared for her and, ah, proving it under their roof were two very different things. "Much as I'd like to," he added, lest she get the impression he was rejecting her.

He was surprised when her expression turned to a scowl and she punched him on the arm. "I am not shagging you with my mum next door, you big lump," she said acerbically.

So he misjudged that situation. "Ah, yes. Of course not. Quite right, too," he tried to cover.

She stiffened at his words and dropped his hand before promptly shutting the door in his face. He frowned. What was that about then?

"Rose?" he knocked lightly on the door. "Rose, what's going on?" There was no response, only silence. He sighed and leaned against the wood frame.

"Rose, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assume...just open the door, please," he said. He stood there for a few moments before lightly knocking again. He heard shuffling and a heavy sigh from the other side of the door but it eventually swung open. He could see that she had scrubbed some tears from her face before she quickly turned away to grab some jimjams from one of the drawers.

"What is it, Rose? Talk to me. What did I say?" He grabbed her hand to keep her from running into the adjoining bathroom.

"It's nothin'," she said, not meeting his eyes. "I can't tell you."

Something he would say, then. Apparently he really did turn into a git. "I'm sorry. And I'm sure he is too," he said quietly, gathering her to him and gently pressing his lips to her temple. They both shivered as their link sprang up, showing his remorse and her acceptance of the apology. She relaxed bonelessly against him for a moment before straightening up.

"I was jus' goin' to see if you would lay down with me a little bit before I fall asleep," she said quietly. "It's jus'...sayin' goodbye. I don't want to be alone tonight." She met his eyes tentatively and he gazed back at her with an expression so filled with, if he was anyone other than the Doctor, she'd say love.

"Of course," he said softly. She pulled away from him to change and brush her teeth in the bathroom. He repeated the same process, using a spare toothbrush from her drawer and removing his dress shirt, tie, belt, shoes and socks before going back out to join her in his undershirt and trousers.

She was already in her bed but she held up the corner of the duvet to invite him in beside her. He slid under the cover and pulled her close to his chest, pressing a kiss into her hair. He felt her crying quietly into his undershirt and he merely held her, tracing soft circles across her back until he felt her drift off into sleep. It felt natural to lie here with her, even if he was not a creature to lie anywhere for very long and it was only the second night he had ever done so with her.

As she slept he found himself gently tracing the features of her face with the hand not trapped underneath her body. He considered how much his life had changed in the past few days. He had met, offended, made up to, danced with, made love to, met the parents of, and now was lying in bed with a remarkable, bright, loving, oddly telepathic human girl from his personal future. The wonders that just three days could bring. He would have to give her up and forget about her for an undetermined amount of time until he could find her again in a different body but for the moment he was the happiest he thought he'd ever been.

After a few hours, he removed his now-asleep arm from beneath her and stood, despite her muffled, unconscious protest, moving to the chair beside the bed to read one of the books from her shelf. 'A Tale of Two Cities.' Dickens. Good choice, he thought, smiling. He'd like to meet that man one day. He was a big fan, after all.

When he'd finished the book about an hour later, sunlight was beginning to stream through the windows and he could tell from Rose's breathing pattern that her sleep cycle was starting to lift. She'd be awake soon and he didn't want her to wake up without him by her side. Hopefully she would never have to do that again.

He slid back under the duvet with her, replacing his arm under her body and his hand on her face, drawing her to him so their noses almost touched and enjoying the happy, satisfied sigh Rose gave in her sleep. Revelling in her proximity, he closed his eyes. Surely it wouldn't hurt to nod off for just a minute, lulled by her warmth and her presence.

With both occupants of the room soundly asleep, it went unnoticed several minutes later when the door creaked open softly and Jackie Tyler poked her head in to wake up her daughter. She took in the sight in front of her, both Rose and the Doctor, wrapped up in the duvet face to face, looking so peaceful and so in love, even in sleep, that she couldn't bear to wake them yet. They both deserved a bit of peace in their lives. His hand was on her cheek as if he had been caressing it just as he fell asleep and Jackie gently closed the door, knowing at least that her daughter would be in good hands, that she would be happy and that she would, without a doubt, be loved.

Shortly afterward, Rose slowly awoke as she felt something tickling her nose. She tried to bat it away but it persisted and finally she was forced to open her eyes to confront her torturer. She was met with a pair of mischievous blue eyes at a very close distance. The distance was soon closed and then there were a pair of lips on hers that she simply couldn't resist. After a thorough round of snogging, she pulled away, noticing the obvious effect of the morning, her proximity and the snogging on the enthusiastic Time Lord next to her.

"Good morning," he whispered huskily, pulling her into a sitting position on top of him.

"Good morning," she replied bemusedly. "Still my parents house, remember?" she said, cheekily, climbing off him despite his protest.

He sighed melodramatically and then stood up quickly, throwing the duvet off his legs and pressing up against her, holding her body to his own tightly. "Oh, I remember, unfortunately, which means a cold shower for me. I also remember that this is our second frustrating morning in a row. And," he said, lowering his voice considerably and rotating his hips against hers, "I remember that you said you were going to let me make it up to you. Which I fully intend to do _the moment _we get back to your flat."

She shivered at his words and kissed him again before pulling away to wander from the room down to breakfast before she changed her mind about shagging him. As she walked down the stairs, thoughts of the naked, wet, aroused Doctor currently in the shower did not help.

When she arrived at the table, she found her family and Mickey were already there, enjoying a large breakfast spread. There was a wrapped package sitting at her usual place.

"What's this, Mum?" she asked, eyeing the package and taking care not to spill any syrup on the pretty paper.

"A little gift to take with you," Jackie responded. "From all of us."

Rose set aside her fork to rip the paper off the package. Inside there was a large, beautiful photo album filled with pictures of Mickey, Jake and her in their Torchwood gear, of little Tony with his face smeared with birthday cake, of Rose laughing at Pete in a ridiculous Santa outfit for the Vitex Christmas party, of Jackie and Rose curled up on the sofa watching this universe's version of Eastenders and so many more. Memories of the three years of their life spent together in this universe, zeppelins and all. Tears once again filled her eyes as Rose flipped through the pages, finally bringing them up to meet Jackie's.

"You didn't do all of this last night," Rose whispered, understanding the implications of the gift.

"No sweethear', I didn't. Been working on it since the first day you got trapped here. Always knew you'd find a way back to 'im. Just hoped you'd be able to say goodbye an' I could give it to you before you went."

"Thank you. I love it," she said, unable to think of anything else to add.

The Doctor joined them a few moments later and Rose allowed the conversation to be turned to what Pete would be doing this week at Vitex and Mickey's latest assignment at Torchwood. Things she would never hear again. As if sensing her thoughts, the Doctor grabbed her hand under the table and smiled at her. She squeezed his hand and they prepared to say their final good-byes.

Gathering in the foyer, the Doctor gently took the album from her so she could hug them all properly. Rose first went to Tony. "Don't forget all tha' stuff I taught you about aliens an' girls," she said, kissing her little brother on the forehead and holding his little hand in both of hers. He returned her hug with the enthusiasm of youth and Rose hoped one day her mum would explain to him where she had disappeared. "Have a fantastic life," she whispered.

Next she turned to Pete. "Thanks for bein' the dad I never got to know. I'm glad you found mum. Take care of her." Pete's eyes filled with tears and he gathered her into a bear hug. He whispered something in her ear and Rose laughed for a moment before letting him go.

Mickey stepped up to accept his hug next. "You'll always be my best girl," he said, kissing her cheek. "Make sure you keep him in line and try not to get into too much trouble."

"Thanks, Mick. Thank you so much. I owe you...I'm going to miss you." Mickey nodded and eventually released her, pushing her gently toward Jackie.

"I love you, Mum," she whispered, accepting and returning Jackie's fierce hug and letting her tears mingle with the other woman's freely.

"I love you, too," Jackie replied simply, their words from the night before speaking for themselves. Letting go of Rose, she turned to face the Doctor who shifted nervously and looked like he wasn't sure what to expect but he handed Rose the album and stepped up to meet Jackie.

"Get her back where she belongs an' do your best to keep her safe. I know you two live tha' daft life of hoppin' from one disaster to the next but try an' take a minute jus' to enjoy each other every now and then. Take care of her. An' let her take care of you," she said sternly. The Doctor nodded and suddenly embraced her, taking everyone by surprise. "An' I suppose...thank you, Doctor," she added, returning his embrace and kissing him on the lips again. He pulled away looking slightly shocked. Rose grinned, exchanging a look and a giggle with her mum. Embarrassing the Doctor had always been and would always be a favorite pastime of Jackie's.

The Doctor stepped up to shake Pete's hand. "The universe you said," Pete reminded him, leveling one last gruff father look at him.

"All of time and space," he responded, this time out loud, before turning to Mickey, who shook his outstretched hand in a far friendlier manner than he had ever before.

"I'd say I'm sorry for punching you but I'm not," Mickey said honestly. "And one day when you remember this, you'll know why. But anyway...be safe, Doctor. Don't ever forget that you've got the best girl in two universes there with you. And for God's sake...tell her, already." He didn't need to ask what it was Mickey wanted him to tell Rose but he couldn't just yet. There was something preventing him from saying it...it wasn't the time yet. He'd know when it was.

He took Rose's free hand and, with one last look back at the most important people of her life, Rose walked out of the house and into her future. Her hands shook as she took the car keys from her pocket, shifting the precious album awkwardly to open the door. The Doctor gently took the keys from her. "I can drive if you like," he offered.

Rose sniffed and raised her head to look at him, eyebrow raised. "You can?" she asked, almost insultingly skeptical.

He preened overdramatically at her a bit, anxious to raise her spirits some. "Of course I can," he scoffed. "You think I can travel through all of time and space and I can't drive a 21st century human car?"

"You can barely drive the TARDIS," she teased.

"Rose Tyler! I've never been so insulted in all my lives!" he crowed, dancing away from her with the keys and walking around to the other side to open the door for her. She slid into the seat and, as he walked back to the driver's door, fell back into a sad silence as they drove into the city.

"I spent a fair amount of my third life on Earth driving a yellow roadster named Bessie," he offered eventually to break the silence.

Rose raised her head to look at him in surprise. She didn't know which part surprised her more...the fact that he had owned a yellow sports car, that he had named it, that he had spent an extended amount of time on Earth, or that he was telling her about his past. He'd never really done that in all the time they were together.

"Why were you on Earth?" she asked tentatively, not wanting to scare him into clamming up as his two latest regenerations would.

"Oh, the Time Lords exiled me there after they forced me to regenerate," he responded casually.

"What? They can do that?" she asked, shocked that his own people would basically carry out a death sentence on him. But then again, maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.

"They can," he responded darkly. "Didn't stop them from making me their errand boy for a time, though," he added.

"Why'd they do it?" she asked, incredulously.

"As to why...they were punishing me for meddling," he answered wryly. "Meant to be great observers, Time Lords are. Detached and scholarly, sitting around and doing nothing. I fixed something that needed to be fixed and they made me pay for it. I've never fit in there. Always been an outcast," he finished quietly.

Rose reached over and settled her hand on his leg, squeezing his thigh gently since both of his hands were on the wheel. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I got out of there as soon as I could. Liberated the TARDIS and ran off towards the end of my first life."

"You stole the TARDIS?" Rose asked, surprised and yet...it sounded so much like something he would do.

He grinned at her sideways. "Yes, I did! She was an older model...scheduled for decommission so she and I chose a different life together. We've always been close...she chose me as much as I chose her. Wouldn't have been able to take her if she hadn't let me."

Rose took that in as she traced absentminded patterns on his thigh with her fingers. She was vaguely aware of the Doctor's blue presence on the outskirts of her mind, still a happy cerulean.

The Doctor, for his part, was trying to concentrate on driving (really it had been quite sometime since he'd driven an Earth car despite his overblown confidence to Rose) but it was getting increasingly difficult with her hand doing that to his leg. He shifted slightly and cleared his throat.

"So...I take it I've never shared this with you? Or are you just being a polite listener?" he asked.

Her fingers stopped for moment and he chanced a glance over at her on the passenger's side. Her face had taken on the sad, distant expression he recognized from whenever she was thinking about his future incarnations and she sighed slightly. "No. You...you don't talk about your past much," she responded.

A melancholy silence fell yet again as both of them descended into thoughts of their respective futures. Hoping to break it, Rose resumed her patterns on his leg. "So, what did you do on Earth while you were here? Get a mortgage?" she asked, teasingly.

"Hardly," he snorted. "I was employed by UNIT as a science advisor. Still am, in fact. I just don't show up very often." Her hand was back to distracting him again, along with thoughts of their conversation immediately upon waking up this morning.

Rose noticed the shift in his mind's color in association with the motion of her fingers on his thigh. Smiling a bit wickedly to herself, she consciously worked them a bit higher and a bit further in, feigning absentminded nonchalance. They were very near her block now and so Rose increased her attentions on his leg. She let her mind wander and let a fanciful picture of him taking her against the stairwell wall flit through her mind.

The car jerked slightly to the side unexpectedly and she tightened her grip on his upper thigh involuntarily. "Stop doing that," he hissed at her.

"Doing what?" she asked innocently, recovering quickly from the shock.

"You know what," he responded, shifting slightly in his seat again.

"This?" She punctuated the sentence by drifting her hand in and squeezing his inner thigh meaningfully. "Or this?" she continued, devising the most wicked mental scenario she could and pushing it his direction.

He groaned out loud, to Rose's amusement. "I mean it, Rose. This automobile requires concentration to operate and you, you minx, are interfering with my concentration."

"What happened to Time Lord superiority?" she asked, teasingly, still stroking his leg in a very deliberate fashion. "Human blokes can multitask being turned on and doin' all sorts of stuff. Otherwise the world would never get anything done."

"Well, 'human blokes' are much more accustomed to being aroused than I am," he retorted. "Seeing as they do it all the time and I...well, ah. I don't."

"Mm...I think you do. Now," Rose teased again. She was enjoying this, she thought. A lot.

"Yes, I can tell you're enjoying this," he responded, a bit irritated but whether he was irritated at her for distracting him (as enjoyable as it was) or himself for his lack of control, he wasn't certain. Her eyes widened that he had picked up on that thought but the Doctor blustered on. "That's because you, you infuriatingly lovely human, have managed to break down all my defenses. At any rate, I would appreciate it if you would stop for a few moments. I would like to get us both back to your flat alive so we can go about all those lovely little scenes you keep sending me. Which, by the way, you shouldn't be able to do," he added.

Rose laughed lightly, removed her hand from his leg and closed off their mental connection. Even though he had asked her to do it, the Doctor felt instantly cold at the loss of both her hand and her mind.

"So can you feel where the TARDIS is?" Rose asked, suddenly realizing that he hadn't once asked her for directions to the flat.

"Yes," he responded, glad to have a distraction and the opportunity to get his body back under control. "I can always feel where she is, can find her mental presence even from a great distance." That explained his unerring inner TARDIS compass when they were beating a hasty retreat during their daily adventures. He felt her reaching out mentally for a moment.

"I can, too," she said, sounding surprised.

"Is that new?" he asked, pulling into a parking spot just in front of her flat and turning off the car.

"Yeah," she responded. He turned in his seat to face her. "In fact, it feels like...oh never mind," she trailed off, lowering her head, unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the car to escape his stare.

"What?" he asked.

"It's like the way I can feel you," she said, shyly. "Yesterday at the zoo I could sor' of feel where you were, like a compass or somethin'. And when we got to the estate, I knew you were there."

He gazed at her thoughtfully. That probably had something to do with the strange mental bond he had seen twisting through their timelines. He, however, couldn't feel her...why was that? Perhaps something would happen to bind them together in Rose's past and his future.

Rose shifted under his faraway gaze. "Is...is that ok?" she asked him, weakly.

He smiled at her, holding the door to the building open and taking her hand as she passed by him. "It's fine, Rose. Just curious, that's all. But I think I might have an old history book someplace in the TARDIS that will help." They climbed the stairs in silence.

Rose unlocked the door to her flat and shed her coat, releasing his hand and moving to sit on the couch. He frowned at her and grabbed for the retreating hand. "Where do you think you're going, Ms. Tyler?" he asked.

She looked up at him, surprised. "You said you wanted to get a book from the TARDIS," she explained. "I was going to wait out here until you were done." If she had learned anything from her time with him, it was that nothing would distract him when he was on a mission for knowledge: not tea, not conversation and not even deliberately worn short, denim skirts.

"Oh, I've got loads more important things to do right now than read dusty old books," he replied, pulling her in close to him and delighting in the shiver through her body as he lowered his lips to her ear, nibbling on it and tracing the shell with his tongue as she had liked the other night. He had spent yesterday reading what appeared to be a shiny, new book entitled "An Interspecies Guide to Sex with a Human For Dummies". He was fairly certain that he had never purchased such a book and that his cheeky TARDIS had chosen that title on purpose. After feigning non-interest for a little while, he eventually had sat down and read the entire thing, making notes in the margins. He was nothing if not studious.

"Yeah?" she responded, trying to keep her breathing steady and her knees from buckling. For a man who didn't dance much he certainly had the moves. "Like what?"

"Like this," he responded simply, lowering his mouth to hers and offering a blistering kiss. He walked her backward through the flat toward the bedroom door and by the time they got there, they were both panting. He pressed her against the door and into his body and she used her thigh against his trousers to make him groan. He fumbled behind her for the door handle unsuccessfully a few times before uttering a few Gallifreyan curses she recognized from her first Doctor into her mouth and finally pulling away long enough to open the apparently mystifying contraption. Rose giggled slightly at him, proud to know that she was the cause for the brilliantly befuddled genius in front of her.

"Oh, you are so going to pay for that, Rose Tyler," he growled, low and husky before sweeping her up unexpectedly into his arms. She could feel his determination, his arousal and his cocky assurance through their mental link, which flared to the forefront of her mind as he deposited her on the bed.

She gazed at him with half-hooded eyes (positive human arousal sign, he noted) as he slowly crawled up her body and began to undo the buttons on her shirt. Making small, gorgeous sounds of encouragement as he gently removed the shirt she then giggled again as he very triumphantly removed her bra on the first go.

He smiled up at her and then turned her giggle into a moan as he let his mouth wander over her right breast and his hand over the left. He pinched and kneaded and sucked and flicked just as his new favorite book had instructed him to and soon she was writhing underneath him.

Suddenly she was pawing at his clothing, having decided, apparently, that he had too much of it on. He simply tutted at her and removed her hands from his shirt. "My turn, remember?" he said, sensuously and rather than argue, Rose simply let her head fall back on the pillow and let him resume his quest over her torso. His hands wandered down the the button on her jeans and she obligingly raised her hips so he could remove both them and the black knickers she had worn in one fell swoop.

He breathed in deep, taking in the scent of her arousal and letting it fuel his own. He traced his hand lightly over her thighs and hip bones and lowered his mouth to her ear again. "Let me in, Rose," he whispered and she both separated her thighs and dropped her mental shields, revelling in the feeling of his mind in hers and two of his long fingers inside her.

He moved them experimentally, changing direction and speed, searching deep for...there, if the sound that Rose suddenly made as any indication._"Do you have any idea what this is like for me, Rose?" _he whispered in her mind, his projected voice dark and deep and the color of his presence pulsing with desire. _"Superior biology and all...being with you is a full body experience."_ She whimpered as he added a third finger and changed his rhythm.

_Each one of my bodies has different strengths, different quirks and my ears are best in this one...I can hear the blood pounding through your veins, can tell the way your heart speeds up when I touch you, when I look at you. And those sounds, you make..._ He suddenly removed his fingers completely and then plunged them deeply in again, eliciting one of the desired sounds and moaning with her, then chuckling mentally. _"I can smell your arousal. It's everywhere...all around, an intoxicating, gorgeous smell that makes it impossible for me to focus on anything else."_Drawing his tongue along her neck and sucking lightly on her pulse point, he added _And the way you taste. I can taste on your skin how much you want me, how much you need me."_

Rose moaned out loud again, knowing now that he liked the sound of it. Between his mental words and the incredibly talented motions of his fingers, she was very, very close if only he would...he slowed his fingers and brought her back down again, chuckling again at her sound of frustration.

_"That is what you get, Rose Tyler, for giggling at a man with a mission." _In retaliation, she clenched her muscles tightly around his fingers and his chuckle turned into a growl. Suddenly, he flicked his thumb across her clit hard, once and then she shattered around him, crying out incoherent words mixed with his name and clenching repeatedly around his fingers. Once the contractions of her muscles had stopped and her panting had slowed, he removed his hand and moved to lay beside her, propping his head up with his other hand and trailing his damp fingers across her stomach, looking very smug.

When she had control over her muscles and her thoughts again, Rose raised her head to look at him. He gave her a mischievous, smug smile and suddenly, with him in the dress shirt and that swirly tie and with that familiar expression, Rose was hit with an image of and a powerful wave of longing for "her Doctor", his later form, so raw that they both gasped.

The Doctor let the smirk fall from his face and his propped up head slipped off his hand in surprise. All they'd been through in the past few days and here they were in bed, with her wishing he was someone else. He was just a placeholder, a fill-in until she got back to the later version of him. "Her Doctor", she'd mentally called the pretty boy with wild hair. What did that make him?

Hurt and confused, he retreated from her mind and started to roll off the bed only to find himself pinned down by the warm weight of naked Rose Tyler. She sat across his stomach and put her hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the bed. "What? I'm just going to go get the TARDIS ready so you can get back to 'your Doctor'," he said sarcastically, making a half-hearted attempt to dislodge her.

"I'm sorry," she said and he could tell from her eyes that she meant it. "You just reminded me of him so much right then and it sort of slipped out. I'm sorry. I know how hard the 'other-man-regeneration' thing is for you," she said sorrowfully, thinking of how much she had accidentally (and, on rare occasions, purposefully) hurt the pinstriped version of him with remarks or glances reminiscent of her affection for his leather-coated form.

"Is that why you bought me these clothes? This tie?" he said venomously, freeing his arms to pull the offending article off. "So you could pretend I was him?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "I bought them because they reminded me of him, yeah, but not because I wanted you to be him."

He eyed her carefully and made one last half-hearted struggle to get up but he didn't mean it. Even hurt and a little angry, having Rose Tyler on top of him was exactly where he wanted to be. She noticed the change in his mind's color from angry to more accepting and still lustful so she shifted a bit lower on top of him, feeling his reaction.

"I like you, this you. You're open an' funny an' kind. You're audacious an' outgoing an' a little too posh. You were polite to my mum, you made friends with my little brother, shook hands with my dad, an' you held me at night when I needed you. You willingly waltzed with me an' you made a move on me when neither one of your later forms would. An' I've been falling for this you as much as I fell for the other two. But you are him. I see flashes of it all the time. Same man, new face, just like you said."

She leaned forward and kissed his nose, his brow, his cheek and then his temple, asking silent permission to be let in. He dropped his shields and she dropped hers and she let him wander through her feelings for him, this him and the other.

While he was preoccupied with his mental wander, Rose began to unbutton his dress shirt, tugging it off his shoulders and untucking his undershirt before wandering on down to his belt buckle and trousers. Satisfied with his findings and a little embarrassed at his petty jealousy of himself, the Doctor pulled out of the recesses of Rose's mind, leaving the connection open and was surprised to find that he was nearly undressed.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that it is rude to undress someone when they are otherwise preoccupied?" he teased her, lightly, helping her by pulling the undershirt over his head, leaving him only in his straining, tight black briefs. It appeared that she had also been busy with her hands while he had been in her mind.

"What about when they're unconscious?" she asked him cheekily, putting her tongue in her teeth.

"You've undressed me when I was unconscious?" he asked, surprised and distracted by her tongue.

"Will do, yep," she laughed. "It was either me or my mum," she added, wickedly. He gave her a look of mock terror.

"Please, no mention of your mother right now, Rose. Don't want to get any of those wires crossed," he shuddered. Rose laughed again and pulled down his briefs, stroking his length while he gave an appreciative sigh.

"Oh, an' don't worry," she said, squeezing lightly and making him ripple under her fingers. "I peeked...an' you were right about big things not changing," she said and in an instant he had flipped her over until he was poised at her entrance, primed for two days to make love to her.

They both sighed as he entered, rippling and thrusting, encorporating both of their biological urges seemlessly. He'd meant for it to be slow, sensual, to show her the intense combination of Tantric and Time Lord he had worked out in his mind yesterday but very quickly the prospect of going slow was blown out of the water, whether it was at his jealousy of thinking of her with "another" man or the two day frustration or that he would have to give her up soon or simply because she was Rose, he didn't know.

She was back to making those sounds again and he was echoing them with his own. This body was fairly vocal, if incoherent. He found himself wondering what he would be in the future, what sounds he would make then. Would Rose like them? Would she still want to make them with him?

He had looked at her feelings for the good-looking pretty boy he would become and knew that she had desired him then, but he hadn't gone through her feelings for the other body of his. He didn't want to know what it looked like. That version of him wouldn't get to be with Rose...she had said that much. And later on...what if he went back to his earlier predilection for older bodies? She wouldn't want him then, vivacious, young and gorgeous thing that she was.

But she was human...she'd get older too, faster than he would like. He would still care for her, then, right? And eventually she would leave him, even if it was by no fault of her own. He suddenly felt a heavy mental prod and he raised his head to look at her, pausing in the automatic motion of their bodies. Judging from the expression her face, Rose had heard all his internal musings. He was going to have to get used to this whole mental sharing thing.

_"A girl might get offended, knowing your mind is wandering like that," _Rose chastised him, mentally.

"Sorry," he mumbled out loud and began to roll off her. Great job killing the mood, he'd done. Rose scowled and unexpectedly flipped him over onto his back, not letting him leave her body. He groaned involuntarily at the new sensation, rippling despite himself.

"Now, you listen to me, Time Lord," she said sternly. "Let's get this straight once an' for all. I love _you_. The changing body thing took a bit to get used to, I'll give you that, but it doesn't matter to me. I do like the sounds you make...an' that you like mine. Whatever you become, whatever you do, whatever sounds you make in the future...I'll like 'em, too. Got that?"

He nodded meekly, letting relief flood through his system.

"Now, you are going to concentrate on this," she commanded and rotated her hips against his forcefully, grinding down on him, "An' the two of us are going to come so hard they'll hear it on Raxacoricofallapatorius. Got that?"

He'd never heard of the wordy planet she'd just rattled off but he echoed the sentiment and the two of them set about doing just that. When she finally collapsed on top of him, they were both exhilaratingly exhausted and delightfully hoarse.

Rose shifted off him slightly and pressed into his side, all hot, sweaty, adorable human and he tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. "Well, that was delightful," he said.

"Yeah, it was," she replied. "I'm goin' to need a shower," she said then, wrinkling her nose.

"Mmm...I like it," he said, nuzzling her neck and running his tongue up her collarbone. "Job well done, I can tell," he said, taking in her flushed face.

"How's come you don't sweat?" Rose asked. "An' if you say 'superior Time Lord biology', I'm going to thump you."

He laughed and ran his hands over her spine. "Maybe I wouldn't mind that," he said, tapping her bum lightly. Rose gasped and looked up at him and he merely chuckled. "In this case, that's the answer, though. My body has internal temperature regulation and so it doesn't need to cool off the same way yours does. Plus I have a much lower body temperature to begin with."

"You feel a lot warmer, now," Rose noted, letting her hand drift along his side to his hip bones and in further.

"Well, I was just occupied with some very strenuous physical activity not too long ago," he replied, closing his eyes as he hardened immediately under her touch to his surprise. His book had instructed him that human males generally had a refractory period of at least fifteen minutes. Apparently that bit didn't apply to Time Lords. Two hearts, after all. He was glad.

"Strenuous my arse," she replied, challengingly. "I was doing all the work!"

"Was that a challenge, Rose Tyler?" he asked, rolling her over and hovering over her body, just above contact.

"Mmm...yeah. Think it was," she responded cheekily.

"Well, then. Time to make them hear us again on...where was it you said?"

"Raxacorico-, oh God," she cried out as he pushed into her. Maybe it was best he never visited there. He was definitely never going to be able to think about it without being instantly turned on.

After another extremely satisfying round of deafening one-upsmanship, Rose fell asleep clutched close in his arms. Romana would be returning his phone call soon and then they would be crossing out of this universe permanently but for now, in this moment, he was satiated, satisfied and supremely happy. The rest of the universe, universes, could sod off for a bit. He fell asleep lightly, pulling the warm, comforting weight of Rose on top of him.


	6. Eight VI

Rose awoke a few hours later with a slight shake to her shoulder and a gentle kiss. She opened her eyes and saw the Doctor standing beside the bed, smiling, showered and changed back into his original clothing.

"Good afternoon, sleepy-head," he said, watching appreciatively as Rose stretched and sat up. "You humans and your propensity to spend a third of your lives asleep. Really, it's a terrible waste," he said, with an affectionate shake of his head. Rose smiled to herself. That must be the posh variation of the Northern "Silly little apes! Sleep the day away, you would" and how many times had she heard that?

He returned her grin, noticing the faraway glance again. "I'm just going to be in the TARDIS getting everything ready to go. Romana's supposed to call me any minute now so we can discuss crossing back over. Her secretary said she's been in meetings for the past two days." He frowned, lightly, pausing. "She usually makes time for me whenever I need it...something must have happened to get the old fogeys all riled up." Rose stiffened slightly but the Doctor took no notice.

"Anyway, thought you might like to have a shower and pack whatever it is you'd like to take with you, make preparations to leave, that sort of thing." He sat on the edge of the bed and Rose pulled the sheet up over her chest. Even if they had just made love again it felt a little strange to sit in her bed, naked, chatting with the Doctor.

"What are you doing with your flat?" he asked, curiously, frowning slightly again, this time because she was hiding the sumptuous amount of flesh he had been busy admiring.

"Mum and dad are going to come by and clean it out once I'm...once I'm gone," she said, taking in a deep breath.

"It's ok to be sad for them, Rose," he replied, gently, taking her face in his hands and pressing another light kiss to her lips. She nodded and sniffed once. "What are they telling the tabloids?" he asked, shifting the conversation slightly.

"I think they're going to tell 'em that I ran off with the mysterious Byronic bloke who appeared out of nowhere an' swept me off my feet days ago," she answered, putting her tongue in her teeth and eyeing him critically, which he responded to by pulling her blankets from the bed, making her squeak. He returned her perusal with a dark, fiery look she was beginning to recognize.

"Oi! Things to do, people to call, apartments to pack!" she exclaimed, scrabbling for the sheet he was keeping out of her reach.

"Just because there isn't time to stop and smell the roses," he said with a quirk of his mouth, which earned him a playful eyeroll from Rose, "doesn't mean one can't enjoy the view." He took a long deliberate moment to take in said-view: slightly sleep and sex tousled beautiful Rose Tyler, who flushed delightfully under his gaze. Unable to restrain himself, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers one last time. "I'll be on the TARDIS if you need me."

Rose gathered her clothes from the floor and took a quick shower. She then set about the task of packing up her meager apartment, occasionally setting something specific aside for her mum or Mickey or adding an object to the large red pack under the table. Two hours later, satisfied with her job she picked up the pack, tucked the precious picture from the table away in her pocket and walked into the TARDIS.

She found the Doctor standing over by the wall phone, his hand still sitting on the receiver with a familiar frown creasing his brow, looking lost in thought.

"What is it? Won't she help us?" Rose asked, concerned at the look on his face.

"Oh, yes," he said, waving his hand. "That's not it...it's just..."

"What?" Rose asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.

"I've been called home. Romana's requesting my presence immediately after I drop you off," he said, looking annoyed.

"You...you don't want to go to Gallifrey? To the rest of the Time Lords?" Rose asked, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

He sighed dramatically. "No. Why would I? They're such a dull, dreary lot. All rules and regulations. And whenever they call me back it's either to reprimand me, put me on trial or to elect me president. Can't seem to make up their minds which it is."

"You've been the president of the Time Lords?" Rose asked incredulously.

"Yes," he waved his hand dismissively. "It wasn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. Anyway, they've got a good president in Romana so that can't be it and I can't think of anything lately I've done to get banished." _Course, they would be none too pleased about this latest development_, he thought. Oh well. They would just add this to the long list of things they felt were inappropriate and improper about him and he would tell them and their list to sod off, as usual.

Rose stared at him, trying to wrap her head around his flippant nature. Of course, this him didn't know that soon there wouldn't be a Gallifrey to return to. That he would soon give anything he had to return to the place he detested now. She remembered his earlier statement about not belonging, about being an outcast. It seemed so unfair and it further explained some of his later, heavy guilt.

He furrowed his brow deeper. "Except...this time if feels different. It feels like...like something big is happening. Like there's a storm on the way." He turned to look at Rose who was watching him with large, sad eyes and he knew instantly that he was right. "Something big is happening, isn't it?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she said, her voice breaking with unspoken grief...grief for his people, his planet and most of all, for him. For his future and the terrible things it held...things she couldn't tell him, couldn't save him from and wouldn't even be able to help him with for years and years.

"You can't tell me," he said, stepping forward to brush away her tears and cupping her face in his hand. Rose wanted to cry out even harder at the achingly familiar gesture. There was a heaviness settling in his body. He could tell from Romana's insistent request that whatever was happening on Gallifrey was worse than he expected. Much worse he suspected, from the reaction he was getting from Rose.

"I know," she whispered. She felt guilty that he was comforting her when it should be the other way around. "It's jus'...it's gonna to get bad soon. Very, very bad." Suspicions confirmed, then.

"Well, I know what we can do. We'll let the universe get on without us for the rest of the day and I, Rose Tyler, will take you on a proper date before giving you over to the lucky git who happens to be me!" he exclaimed, moving gracefully to the console to set the controls.

"It's interesting, really. Not sure I've ever even been on a 'proper date' before. At least, not by human standards. Time Lord standards...now that's different. Stuffy political dinner chaperoned by a neutral party from another household. No fun at all, really. Lots of posturing, lots of negotiating...and no romance. Not big on romance, Time Lords."

Rose watched him silently. There it was...the bluster and bravado done to distract, to cover up his worry, his trepidation, his precognition of trouble. Sometimes he was more the man of his future than Rose could believe. He continued his enthusiastic ramble, pushing buttons and throwing an occasional glance over his shoulder at an unresponsive, lost in thought Rose.

"Of course, there was two night ago. That was a smashing evening. Especially before I got punched. Well, and then later on after I got punched. Really, the punching was the worst part. The before and after were grand. Was that a date? Hmm...Rose? What do you think?"

She shook herself from her reverie to answer him. If distraction was what he wanted, distraction she would give him. "I said it was, didn't I? On our way to the London Eye? Even if you did invite yourself along."

He gave her a wounded look. "You wouldn't have invited me anyway? I'm hurt, Rose. Crushed. So that would make this our second date, then? If those daft romantic films you lot mass produce are any indicator, the number of the date seems to make some difference."

"Ha! I knew you liked those films even before I came along! An' you...fussin' and moanin' every time I wanted to watch 'You've Got Mail'!" she crowed, triumphantly.

"I maintain full innocence of all charges," he said, stiffly, hiding a smile and flicking a lever.

Rose grinned at him and walked over to wrap her arms around his waist from behind, pulling her body flush against his back. He made a small sighing sound as her hands settled on the front of his burgundy waistcoat. "Well, the party could be considered our first date, then dinner with my parents the next night. So, actually, I think this would be our third date. And you know what that means..."

"No, what does it mean?" he asked, full of innocence and curiousity, turning to face her and letting his arms settle loosely around her waist. "Some unknown human mating ritual of which I am unaware?"

She snorted. "Well, yeah, sor' of. 'Course, we've already done the whole human mating ritual thing, so it doesn't really matter."

He laughed with her, gathering her up for a kiss. "You head off to the wardrobe room. I'm sure the TARDIS will help you pick something out. I'll just figure out where to take you for our spectacular third date. Then...I'll figure out where, after the date, I'm going to _take_ you in true third date fashion," he said, seductively, raising an eyebrow.

Rose flushed delightfully and flounced from the room, stopping at the bottom of the stair to listen to the grind and whir that signalled the end of this chapter in her life. Pete, Tony, Mickey...her mum. They would all carry on their lives here and she would miss them, no doubt about that. But her eyes settled on mysterious, sweet, funny man standing at the console who raised his eyes to meet her gaze and gave her a brilliant, universe-shattering smile and she knew everything would be ok. Fantastic, even.

-

The Doctor paced up and down the console room, waiting impatiently for Rose to appear. He was anxious and nervous and excited, his hearts in his throat and his mind flitting. This must be what being in love felt like. He straightened his cravat and adjusted his waistcoat, fiddled with the TARDIS console, sat down in the armchair, stood up from the armchair, picked up and sat down a book, twirled his screwdriver and tapped his foot. He had his back turned to the sweeping staircase when he heard a slight creak of wood, a booming sound to his nervous, sensitized hearing.

Turning around, his breath caught and even his respiratory bypass gave pause. He had chosen Coricana for several reasons...great food, wonderful dancing and, as it so happened, a propensity for Victorian dress so he could wear his normal clothes without a complaint from Rose. Not that she had been complaining...he had caught her admiring his tight breeches. What he hadn't considered was Rose in period dress.

She was exquisite.

She swept down the stairs in a burgundy and black dress that clung to her torso and swept out at her legs, a perfect combination of elegance and sexuality. Her hair was pulled off her neck in a delicate bun and the dress settled wide over her shoulders. He captured her image in his mind, burning it where it would shine brightly for the rest of his days. He could never have a more perfect moment.

It was an agonizing eternity before she reached him, before he could pull her to him and run his hands over her arms, her shoulders, her face, to convince himself that she was here and that she had dressed this way for him. Only for him, ever for him.

There was that possessiveness again. He really needed to watch that.

"You, Rose, you...you're beautiful," he finally breathed.

She glanced away from him and, bizarrely let her shoulders drop a bit. "For a human," she sighed. She should have known it would be a bad idea to wear _this_ dress, her Cardiff dress, but it reminded her of her first romantic attraction to the Doctor; the first time she had seen him, even briefly, as an ordinary man and not as an unattainable, mysterious alien entity.

That, and it matched his waistcoat. Work of the TARDIS, no doubt.

He took her shoulders and moved so she was looking him directly in the eye. "Why do you always say that?" he asked gently, peering into her eyes with breathless intensity. "You're beautiful. Full stop. I could look at you for days and never grow tired of the view. The way your hair frames your face, the way your eyes twinkle with light and laughter, the way you take my breath away...superior biology or not," he added cheekily to avoid sounding too naff.

She gazed up at him, letting his words soak in and then pulled him in for a delicate kiss. She loved him. She would always love him. Especially when he when he said things like that.

"Well, shall we?" he said, offering his arm to her.

"So, where are we? Is it safe?" she asked cheerily as they reached the doors.

He looked at her sideways. "Of course it's safe! Why would I take you someplace that isn't safe?" he asked. "Wait, no. Don't answer that. This," he said, pulling the doors open wide, "is Coricana."

It was Rose's turn to have her breath catch. The sky was a deep, vibrant purple and all around her were shimmering buildings of brilliantly hued glass. It was astoundingly beautiful. People of all shapes and sizes wandered through the streets in various facsimiles of Victorian dress and gorgeous music poured from the open balconies of the central building where, through the glass, Rose could see hundreds and hundreds of couples dancing and dining, wrapped up in the planet and each other.

"Wow," she said, turning on the spot while he leaned on the doors of the TARDIS satisfactorily.

"Good choice, then?" he asked, smiling at the way she seemed to light up in the new world. It let him see the universe in a different way, that light coming from this little human and it made him love her even more.

Examining the dress of the planet's natives, she turned back to him and raised a speculative eyebrow. "You just chose it because then I wouldn't tease you about your clothes, didn't you?" she asked, teasing him now.

"Might have done," he said, not even feigning hurt. "But there are a number of other reasons, too."

"For example?" she prodded, taking his arm and allowing him to lead her through the streets toward the building with the dancing and feasting.

"Well, for one thing, it's beautiful," he ticked off, counting on his fingers. "Atmosphere and climate: perfect for a human. Peaceful, tourist-based society. Best Italian food this side of the galaxy, told you that already. So...beautiful planet, beautiful weather, beautiful woman, dinner, dancing and romance. Perfect third date, if I do say so myself," he finished smugly.

"Is it the same as the one in the other universe?" Rose asked.

"Not sure...never actually been there," he responded, carefully.

"Why not? If it's so great, I mean. An' it does seem pretty great," she replied. Everything he had said lined up with her perceptions of the planet so far. It was delightfully warm without being hot, like the sun on a perfect Spring day, they hadn't been chased by natives with pitchforks (yet), the glass buildings around them shone with grandeur and at least the smell of the food was spectacular.

"I'll tell you later," he responded cagily as they were taken to a secluded, intimate table for two near a terrace.

The food was indeed spectacular and as Rose finished off the lightest, most delicious chocolate mousse she had ever tasted, she made a sound very similar to the ones she had been making earlier in the day. Sounds of which he had grown quite fond. Sounds that tended to affect him in a very profound way.

The Doctor, for his part, had become increasingly distracted watching Rose's delicate pink tongue work its way around the only dinner utensil he'd ever been jealous of in his entire life. Another new thing Rose had introduced him to, then. Being jealous of spoons.

More to keep himself from simply dragging her out on the terrace and capturing that tongue for more personal purposes, he broke the intimate silence that had fallen with a question. "So...what am I like? Later, I mean. The me's you know," he asked, hoping he'd like her response. "I don't like pears, do I?" he asked, suddenly horrified.

She laughed and then considered him carefully before answering. "My first you...he had the best arse I've ever seen." He laughed that _that_ was the first comment she chose to make. She simply shrugged at him and let his favorite mischievous smile loose. "An' these long, lean legs (from runnin' probably), a jaw that could cut glass an' these piercing blue eyes, like ice an' fire an' wind." She sighed and set the spoon down on the table.

"He was gruff, an' moody an' possessive but I rather liked tha'." She raised her eyes to grin at him and let her foot wander over to his and up his calf a bit. "Sometimes I would flirt with some alien pretty boy, jus' so I could time how long it would take for him, for you, to charge in an' drag me away." She lifted her champagne glass and took a swallow, swirling the golden liquid around before continuing.

"S'when we first started to figure each other out...goin' from strangers to livin' together in the span of about four days. Not always the easiest bloke to live with, you were but..." she trailed off. _It was worth it, _was the unfinished end of that sentence. Or perhaps _I wouldn't have missed it for the world._

"Next you, still a fantastic arse, really, really great hair an' the most adorable, earth-shaking smile. Rude, spastic an' talked too much. I swear...I think you babbled aliens into submission than anything." Her eyes were alight and sparkled with memories of them both, full of love and laughter and he smiled, satisfied with her response. Standing up, he took her hand and led her toward the dance floor full of couples.

"Well, as long as I've got a fantastic bum, what else really matters?" he said, pulling her into a waltz hold again.

"My thoughts exactly," she said, letting her hands wander down to give him an unexpected, quick squeeze before returning to respectable territory as if she'd done nothing, her tongue in her teeth and his quickened breath the only indicators of her hands' nefarious activities.

He laughed again, a bright, happy sound that filled the room and her heart and he swept her around the room merely for the joy of it. There were bad things coming on the horizon, things he could feel, could see lurking on the edges of his Time sense, but for now, for tonight, he would laugh and love and dance. Oh, how he would dance.

Occasionally they would pause to catch their breath, to chat, to drink champagne or to kiss but for the most part, they danced. Late in the evening, couples started to dwindle around them on the floor but still they danced. Finally, exhausted but elated, they retired to the terrace where all around them other couples were gathered in pairs, enjoying the velvet night sky and each other.

The Doctor drew Rose in front of him, his arms settled around her waist tightly, one of hers on top of them, and the other reaching up and around to encircle his neck, holding him close.

"Do you know the other reason I brought you here, Rose Tyler?" he asked, his breath caressing her ear. She shook her head slowly and he buried his nose in her hair for a moment. "Look around, what do you see?"

She turned her head slightly, taking in the view around but not really looking too hard, unwilling to break the connection of their bodies. "Couples," she answered. "Everyone's here in couples."

"Yes," he breathed. "Coricana is a pleasure planet, part of a pair of them actually. They were created specifically for this purpose, for romance, for dancing, for evenings under the stars with the person you care about most in the universe. Coming here is a promise."

"A promise of what?" she asked, quietly, trying to control her flustered breathing.

"Forever," he whispered, tightening his arms around her and sighing into her neck.

Hours later, they wandered back to the TARDIS, hand in hand, hearts brimming, bodies humming with the thrill of being close and the anticipation of being closer. The Doctor unlocked the door to the console room and wordlessly took her hand again, leading her through the winding halls of the TARDIS and stopping in front of a door she'd never seen before.

"My room," he said, almost shyly, pushing the door open and standing aside to let her in, almost nervously awaiting her approval.

Rose looked around her. She'd never been in his room before, any of him, and it was a little hard to believe she was here now. The room suited him to a t. Like the console room, the furniture was a rich, elegant mahogany with carvings in the unfamiliar circular language she recognized from post-its around the console room and a high, vaulted ceiling. There were books and knick-knacks scattered around the room, obviously tinkering works-in-progress. The bed was large and ornate, sporting a comforter of deep, velvet burgundy. Her mouth quirked at the corner, thinking it funny that man who so rarely ever slept would have such a large, luxurious bed.

He smiled gently with her, following her line of sight, seeming to read that thought. "It's actually not usually that big or...fluffy," he said. "The TARDIS seems to like you a lot."

"Good to know she approves," Rose responded, patting the wall nearest her and feeling the happy thrum she received in reply. The Doctor watched her with deep eyes, smiling at her interaction with his beloved ship. How lucky he had been to find her, this mysterious woman who had worked her way into his life, his hearts and his ship. He felt the ship return his affection and her wave of love for them both.

Rose grinned to herself thoughtfully. The TARDIS had shown her approval in more than one way...even providing Rose with some rather beautiful and very sexy underthings for the dress. He'd find that out soon enough.

Their silence stretched on for a few more moments and the Doctor fidgeted nervously like an adolescent 200-year old. Really, he shouldn't be nervous about having a girl in his bedroom. A beautiful girl. A beautiful post-third date girl who was now perched _on_ his bed looking at him expectantly.

Rose seemed to sense his sudden inexplicable sense of nerves and offered him a warm smile and stretched out her hand, waggling the fingers. It was perfect. He felt his nerves flee instantly and he reached forward to take her hand, pulling her up to stand in front of him. He put his forehead to hers and for a moment they just stood, breathing in each other's presence. He transferred his mouth to her ear and felt her shiver in response.

"So...third date. How'd I do?" he asked, letting his lips wander from her ear down to her neck and back up again.

"Dunno," Rose responded, turning her head a bit to give him better access. "Date's not over yet. Still have the final exam to go," she said. "Full marks for the preliminary round, though."

He lifted his head from her neck and Rose sighed at the withdrawl. The Doctor moved to stare her directly in the eye. "Rose, I..." he began and then trailed off. Her eyes softened and she raised one of her hands to caress the side of his face. He leaned into her touch and closed his own eyes for a moment, relishing her human hot hand against his cool cheek. "I just want to tell you that the past few days have meant more to me than...well, than anything."

He took a deep breath, turning his head slightly to press a butterfly light kiss into her palm and continued, "And even though I'll have to forget this for a while...I want you to know that I'll carry it with me forever, locked away until I can remember again. And even if I can't remember the specifics, no matter what it is that's coming...and I know something is, I'll remember that I was happy and subconsciously I'll keep looking for you, no matter what, even if I don't know why. I'll find you and we'll start this all over again."

Rose leaned forward and pressed a sweet, light kiss to his cheek. "Promise?" she asked.

"I promise," he replied before leaning forward to capture her mouth again, still sweet but with a slow burn replacing his light touch from before, their lips engaging in a now-familiar new dance. His tongue glided carefully in beside hers, languidly exploring the intimate corners of her mouth, memorizing every inch until it no longer held any mysteries. He filed away every nook and cranny, every ridge and fall and catalogued every exquisite sound she made.

Her fingers ran up his sides, over the strong muscles of his chest to rest on his cravat, untying it and drawing it from his collar. She slowly divested him of his jacket and clever fingers began to work on his shirt and waistcoat. Gently nudging them from his shoulders, soon he stood before her shirtless, letting her glorious fingertips trace all across his naked torso, memorizing the lines and sinews much as he was doing to her sweet mouth.

He was suddenly forced to retreat from her lips to draw a ragged breath as she scraped her fingernails lightly across his nipples down toward the narrow line of hair that led into his trousers. Encouraging her with one of the moans of which this body was so fond, he eased back from her to watch as she hungrily removed his breeches, cupping him against the taut fabric of his desperately tight pants, sighing with him at the contact and stroking him through the straining fabric. For a few moments, he merely stood, enjoying her ministrations, exploring their shared vocalizations.

Gazing at her with his arousal-fogged eyes, he realized that she was entirely too clothed. Passing that thought onto her, which she responded to with a light laugh and a desire-darkened gaze, she stood back so he could remove her dress. He divested her of it achingly slow, savoring each inch of skin revealed to him, caressing it with fingers and then lips before revealing another. How was he possibly going to carry on without this delightful wonderland at his fingertips now that he had found it?

Finally the dress fell to the floor, falling with a very satisfying whoosh and she stepped out of it, every bit the golden goddess of his dreams. She wore two tantalizing scraps of matching black lace and surveyed him with deep, hooded eyes. With wordless communication, they surged toward each other, physically and mentally, meeting passionately in the middle, exalting at the completion. They would have to be separated eventually, but for now, this was everything and nothing would keep them apart.

Easing back to kneel face-to-face on the bed, they slowly began exploring each other's bodies, all the haste from their earlier couplings falling away, replaced by the desire to know each other as fully as possible. He ran his thumbs over the exquisite black lace over her breasts, feeling the nipples rise to meet his touch, kneading and pressing until he had no choice but to remove the cruel barrier separating him from his prizes, baring them to his gaze and guiding her carefully back on the bed to lie down, allowing his teeth and tongue to continue the job as his hands danced away to the matching fabric below, stroking her through the satin fabric before quickly deciding that this barrier too should be quickly be removed. With a desperate moan, she lifted her hips to comply and he managed to remove them without pausing in his oral indulgence.

He ghosted his fingers over her thighs and hip bones, gently kneading her lower stomach while his mouth worked on her collar bone. She ran her hands up and down over his back, fingers caressing his spine, his shoulders and his bum, squeezing gently and making him moan in anticipation. He was determined to make this experience last because when it was over it would be time to let her go.

Minds connected and pulsing with shared joy and desire, he slid down to her feet and slowly began to work his way up her body, using all the things he'd learned both from his memories of the last few days and his book, watching with delight and fascination as her ardor grew in his mind. When he eventually reached her mouth again, she was whimpering for him and he was only too happy to comply.

He entered her slowly, drawing out the first contact with incredible restraint, pushing into her velvet heat with utmost care and devotion. Once fully immersed in her body, for a moment they simply laid there together, neither moving, barely breathing, taking one another in, letting pleasure and affection radiate across their link.

Then, as one being, he rippled forward and she raised her hips to meet him in an exquisite tango of passion and perfection. Time seemed to slow around them as the gentle push and pull of their bodies became the sole focus of both of their worlds. No matter what happened in his future or hers, they would always have this, always have this night of perfection.

Subtly her sounds began to shift and his control began to weaken and their bodies began a more desperate push for completion. Their worlds erupted together, stars exploding and pleasure surging through them physically and mentally until they both shivered and shook, utterly spent and completely happy.

In a clever twist of his body, the Doctor moved without disconnecting their bodies so Rose was lying beside him, held close to his chest, as close as they could physically be. Despite having had the most thorough and mind-blowing orgasm of his entire life, the Doctor was still half-hard inside her and he intended to stay that way as long as they possibly could.

"So what made you leave?" Rose said suddenly into his neck. He could feel her hot, sweet breath there, almost driving him to distraction.

"Hmm?" he asked. He couldn't see her face without shifting their bodies and he had no intention of doing that.

"Gallifrey. What made you leave Gallifrey in the first place?" she asked.

He sighed and pressed a lingering kiss into her hair, the only part of her that was convenient to his lips. "There's too much of the universe out there to be stuck on one planet reading books, debating philosophy and manipulating politics for thousands of years. Very few Time Lords understand that, understand me. It's being alive...but it's not living."

"And this is? Living, I mean?" Rose asked, quietly.

He rolled them again so she was beneath him and he could look her in the eye. "Yes, Rose Tyler. This is the best bit of living I've done in 1074 years. And I mean that."

She sighed and rolled her hips against him gently, feeling him stir the rest of the way inside her. In wordless (although not silent) communication, they once again to fell to the simmering play of two figures enthralled with each other and determined to live as much as possible in the short time they had left.

Later that night he left her sleeping soundly in his bed, pressing a kiss to her forehead, careful not to wake her. Moving silently, he collected his strewn clothing from the floor and re-dressed, eventually moving to the console room to set the coordinates to return to their universe.

Right on schedule, Romana called and the two of them worked together to move his TARDIS back across the Void into familiar territory. He tried to ignore the desperate, darkened sound of Romana's voice and impending sense of doom he was feeling settle around him. He also prayed that Rose wouldn't wake up quite yet, not wanting her to wake up to the empty bed that he himself would experience for the next unknown eternity until he could find her again.

Settling in the armchair, he placed his fingers on his own temples and started to work through his own personal Timeline to find the wild-haired pretty boy he was to take Rose to now. The actual events in the line were blurred but he could sense the general atmosphere of the occurrences and he skipped around until he caught a glimpse of the man from the picture.

There. He began to move to the console, keeping the image and time frame in his mind's eye to lock onto his future TARDIS but his control slipped and he backtracked a moment, drawn to a horrendous gap not far along in his Timeline, undoubtedly the huge storm that was currently brewing. Gasping, he stumbled and fell to his knees and the TARDIS cried out for him, trying to quell the terror and anguish he had felt there.

Even if he couldn't see what exactly had happened, he understood that it would be horrible. And that he would never make it through alone.

He turned his eyes back to the stairs out of the console room, glancing toward the door that hid his beautiful sleeping new acquaintance.

It was wrong. It was terribly selfish. She was expecting to go to "her Doctor" to live out her happily ever after and he was supposed to give it to her. But all he wanted to do was steal a bit of that happiness for himself, happiness to help him through the darkness that was coming.

As if on cue, the stairs behind him creaked and he turned to see Rose, dressed now in a hoodie and jeans, carrying her red pack standing at the top of the stairs watching him. The red pack tugged at his already straining heartstrings, representing her intention to leave him, to abandon him to his fate, to betray him by no fault of her own.

He wanted her. He needed her. And his next form would need her even more. He half-expected the TARDIS to argue with him, to try and talk him out of it but she was silent. In that instant, he decided.

Rose descended the stairs, still watching him closely as he moved around the console, setting dials and pressing buttons. She had hated waking up alone without him by her side but she had suspected he would be here getting ready for their goodbye.

Collapsing in the armchair near him, she gave him a radiant, encouraging smile, noticing his tense posture and the grim line of his usually playful mouth. His heart broke a little more and his resolve steadied, knowing he would never again be able to look at that armchair without feeling that she should be in it.

"So we're back in our universe, yeah?" she asked to break the shifty silence between them. He must be able to feel even more that something was coming for him to be acting so odd. He opened his mouth to answer but the TARDIS groaned and whined and eventually settled down without the normal jolt to the floor, as if she was subdued as well.

He moved beside her, wordlessly handing her the pack to shoulder and led her to the doors from the console room. "Yes, original universe, out there," he said quietly, not looking her in the eye.

"And...it's out there, too?" she asked, looking at him sadly.

"Future TARDIS, future Doctor, yep," he said. She reached her hands up to run them over his face, across his cheekbones, his strong brow, over his eyelids and through his long, chestnut locks. She would miss him, this him, so much. He had shown her a glimpse of a future with the Doctor that she had almost never believed would be possible, had shown her how much the War had changed him, had shown her a glimpse of the man he had been before, the man she would help him find again. But to do that, she had to lose him now. Sometimes loving him was so hard.

She put her forehead to his and they both dropped their shields, connecting once more before she left. _"I wish there was some way I could help."_she said in his mind and he could feel her sincerity, her love washing across the link. It made him feel reassured and guilty at the same time.

_"You will. I'm sure you will, Rose."_ he replied. He opened his gray-blue eyes to stare into her hazel ones, willing her to feel everything he felt and willing her to forgive him for this small deception. He thought he had given up his manipulative tendencies with his seventh body. Apparently not. They had lost him Ace. He prayed fervently to any deity that was listening that they wouldn't lose him Rose.

He leaned forward and kissed her fiercely. He wouldn't lose her. He couldn't. She would forgive him.

Wouldn't she?

Finally, they broke the kiss in silent communion.

Rose gazed up at him with lovely compassion filled eyes, one hand on the door out of the console room, out of his life, this life. He reached up to cup the side of her face. It would be so long before he would get to see that expression again.

Putting his hand on top of hers and opening the door with her, he whispered "Go on, get in there. I need you."

He watched her form retreat out the door and when it was closed, he sank against it, collapsing to the floor with his head in his hands. With silent tears, he slowly forced the golden memories of their time together into a box at the back of his mind, somewhere safe in the recesses where he would be able to find it again eventually. As he had promised Rose, he kept the deep feeling of satisfaction he had felt when he was with her and instilled a drive to find her once again.

He was right. He would need her.

He just had no idea how much.


End file.
